Signs of Safety Gathering 2008

The first Signs of Safety Gathering held in Gateshead in August 2005 saw 80 people from eight different countries come together to share their experiences of using safety-organised ideas and practices in their agencies and jurisdictions.

On August 27 to 29, 2008, over 100 people from 10 countries will come to Gateshead for the second Signs of Safety Gathering with Gateshead Children's Services Authority again acting as the host.

All presentations where video taped and the videos will be uploaded to this webpage. The first day's video is no up. More will follow soon. The Video's can be found as links through out the programme.

Programme and Abstracts

Gateshead Signs of Safety Gathering
August Wednesday 27 to Friday 29 2008
Angel View Inn Gateshead

Wednesday 27th August

9.30 – 10.00
Welcome and Introduction

Wed 9:30 Welcome and Introduction Video: (Download) (Stream Online) (Help)

10.00 – 11.00
Gateshead Practitioners

Gateshead: from Strength to Strength
Viv and Marjorie will open the Gateshead presentation by describing the progress we have made since we last met three years ago, and also outline some of our hope and aspiration for the next three years. Then we will look at how we have incorporated Signs of Safety in a dynamic way into our meetings in order to promote partnership and collaboration with parents and professionals to increase safety for children. Finally, Laura and Sue will talk about how they have used the Words and Pictures method in short term work, they will illustrate this through examples from their cases.

Wed 10:00 Gateshead Video: (Download) (Stream Online) (Help)
Wed 10:00 Gateshead: Q and A Video: (Download) (Stream Online) (Help)

Morning Tea

11.30 – 12.30
Rob Sawyer & Sue Lohrbach Olmsted County Child & Family Services, Minnesota, USA

Olmsted Developments and Rapid Response Conferencing
Olmsted County Child & Family Services has been in a transformation process for more than ten years. The presentation will briefly identify the rethinking of child protection, a practice model and positive outcomes resulting from the changing child protection practice. The “Rapid Response” case planning conference will be highlighted as a strategy for engaging families early in the investigation or assessment process.

Wed 11:30 Olmstead Video: (Download) (Stream Online) (Help)

Lunch

1.30 – 2.00
Janet Flood, Susan Barnett, Catherine McQueen & Gail Murphy Barnardos, Dundee

Signs of Safety Practice in Dundee
Barnardos Bridge service works with Children and young people who display sexually harmful and concerning behaviour. Barnardos Polepark works with children affected by abuse, we all work in the same building. Janet and Susan will speak about the way that Signs of Safety meetings help us engage families in the repair and recovery work with the children and young people. Catherine and Gail will demonstrate their Signs of Safety work using scales to good effect with children, young people and their families.

Wed 1:30 Dundee Video: (Download) (Stream Online) (Help)

2.00 – 2.30
Tomas Embreus Independent Social Work Consultant Trollhatten, Maria Staf, Eileen Rosic and Martin Facks, Child Protection Social Workers, Malmo City, Sweden

Training, supervising and growing Signs of Safety use in Malmo, Sweden
Swedish Social Worker Tomas Embréus will do a presentation together with Maria Staf, Eileen Rosic and Martin Facks, Social Workers from a district in Malmo, the 3rd biggest city in Sweden. Tomas have been working as an external consultant and trainer for this district for almost 2 years and this presentation will describe our learning journey together. Tomas will first introduce some of his experiences and findings of doing training and supervision in Sweden for the last three years. The focus on the presentation will be the problematic ”default mindset” in Sweden and how Tomas has worked in training and supervision to change this. Maria and Eileen will introduce a case they have been working with and then Martin will be our guide to evaluate how Eileen and Maria have worked in a more strength-based, solution focused and safety-organised way in this case – contrasting to the ”default settings” so dominant in the Swedish context.

Wed 2:00pm Sweden Video: (Download) (Stream Online) (Help)

2.30 – 3.00
Michael Petersen pre-assessment and investigation team, Copenhagen municipality.

Danish Experiences
Michael will present experiences in working with the Signs of Safety approach in a Danish context. The presentation will show 2 examples, with remarkable results. The first is a case about a frustrated mother who beat and yelled at her eight year old son. The other is a case where a 16. year old boy and his father had violent conflicts, which in one case led to the father made to strangle his son, who then took a knife and threatened his father.

Wed 2:30pm Copenhagen Video: (Download) (Stream Online) (Help)
Wed 2:30pm Copenhagen Q & A Video: (Download) (Stream Online) (Help)

Afternoon Tea

3.30 – 4.00
Naomi & Kaoru Inoue, Nagoya Japan
Ayako Iyama and Izumi Honda, Chiba Prefecture, Japan

Using the Words and Pictures and Signs of Safety in Japan
Naomi and Kaoru will present a case study were they helped a family share the story of why a twelve-year-old boy had been in a children's home. This work was done in collaboration with a family social worker of the residential institution as a key step toward the boys reunification. The boy was removed because of the physical abuse by Mom's partner, a father of his sister, when he was three years old. This example presents Naomi and Kaoru’s experience of using the words and pictures and Three Houses tools to create a common explanation for the family on which to move toward reunification. Ayako and Izumi will present their experiences of child protection workers using the Signs of Safety in Chiba Prefecture and growing the practice throughout the system.

Wed 3:30pm Japan Video: (Download) (Stream Online) (Help)

4.00 – 4.30
Team Missisauga: Peel Children’s Aid Society, Mississauga, Ontario

Leading and Supervising Peel Children’s Aid Society’s implementation of the Signs of Safety
Peel Children’s Aid Society (a statutory child protection agency) has been implementing the Signs of Safety throughout the organisation over the past two years. This presentation will report on the journey so far.

Wed 4:00pm Ontario Video: (Download) (Stream Online) (Help)
Wed 4:00pm Ontario Q & A Video: (Download) (Stream Online) (Help)

Thursday 28th August

9.30 – 10.30
Dan Koziolek, Michele Selinger, Carole Cole, Sarah Brandt, Carver County Community Social Services Minnesota, Bill Schulenberg and Chad Hayenga, Cross Generation, Carver County Minnesota

Implementing Signs of Safety in Carver County Minnesota
Four years into implementing the Signs of Safety, Carver County is finding that it has profoundly impacted how we think about strengths, relationships, services, safety, safety plans, and family resources and capacity. We will show an appreciative inquiry of Diane Wickenhauser describing how she has sorted which questions work better at intake for different types of reporters and how this has improved information, decision making and safety networks. Carole Cole will describe how our assessment approach has changed to begin with strengths, work the map with the family, and develop written safety plans and safety networks using the family’s solutions with less court involvement. We will show an appreciative inquiry tape of Tanya Sabol describing how she used leverage in one of her cases. Our in-home contractors (Chad and Bill) will describe how they support and partner with caseworkers to complete three houses, words and pictures, and case maps and help caseworkers develop and test safety networks. This approach has been instrumental in speeding improvement and spreading our best work across our agency. Sarah Brandt will show some of our Three Houses and Words and Pictures and will describe how she and others have used these tools to reduce court cases, children in permanent foster care and terminations of parental rights. Dan Koziolek will describe our leadership journey into using Signs of Safetyas a management tool to reduce paternalism within the agency as we have with families.

Thu 9:30am Minnesota Video: (Download) (Stream Online) (Help)

10.30 – 11.00
John Vogel, LICSW and Philip Decter, LICSW
Massachusetts Department of Social Services and The Family Institute of Cambridge

Stories from the Field: Eliciting Best Practices in Implementing Safety-Organized, Relationship-Based Child Welfare in Massachusetts

Over the last 5 years, Massachusetts’s Department Of Social Services (DSS) has begun a series of initiatives to implement a safety-organized, relationship-based approach to child welfare. As a way to understand the progress, challenges and new innovations that are occurring, we have begun to identify, elicit and film stories of existing best practices from the “bottom-up” - from workers, supervisors, mangers and attorneys who are already implementing these ideas in the field.

This presentation, facilitated by a leader in training at DSS and a consultant the Department uses for their trainings, will showcase:

Ways in which DSS employees are trying to bring the principles of safety-organized, relationship-based collaborative child welfare practice into their work
The challenges they have encountered in the process and the innovations they have created to overcome those challenges
The lessons that emerge from these experiences

This presentation will then explore cross-cutting themes and engage participants in reflection on the broader lessons and principles for implementation that could be explored elsewhere.

Thu 10:30am Cambridge Video: (Download) (Stream Online) (Help)

Morning Tea

11.30 – 12.45
Dr Ferko Ory, TNO Netherlands, Margreet Timmer, Petra Rozeboom, Theo Klooster and Marieke Vogel, Bureau Jeugdzorg and AMK Drenthe, Eric Sulkers, Kitty Reiman, Jose Wennekes Zeeland

Dutch Developments in a Crazy System

11-30 – 11.40
In a short introduction Ferko will present a little of the Dutch context and his work in developing ‘Starting Together’ a Netherlands wide support and health programme for 0 – 4 year olds that draws upon solution focused ideas in te service delivery and in the supervision and learning.

Thu 11:30am Netherlands - Ferko Video: (Download) (Stream Online) (Help)

11.40 – 12.15
Margreet Timmer, Petra Rozeboom, Theo Klooster and Marieke Vogel we will talk about the ‘crazy’ service system in the Netherlands, and in Drenthe in particular. After that we inform you about our experience with the three houses using a number of examples. We will mention the effect of bringing children into the process of Signs of Safety showing its powers with the snares and snags.

Thu 11:40am Netherlands - Drenthe Video: (Download) (Stream Online) (Help)

12.15 – 12.45
Eric, Jose and Kitty from Zeeland in the south of the Netherlands will presentation will focus around a disputed sexual abuse case. In this situation involved an isolated mother, living with a quite dominant, autistic father, where we had only proof of the father giving his 5 yr old son one  'French-kiss', 'for sex-education'. Parents at first insisted on secrecy in the church community about the fact hat father was not to be alone with his son anymore , but after a while this was not feasable for the mother. Finally 3 families from the church had to be involved, after a while this set a lot in motion. We learned to be patient and gently, especially in cases where the mothers are very isolated at the onset of our intervention.

Thu 12:15am Netherlands - South Video: (Download Part 1) (Download Part 2) (Stream Online) (Help)

Lunch
 
1.30 - 2.15
Kelly Colledge, Chief Professional Oficer, Barbara Binks, Team Leader, Department for Child Protection West Australia, Sonja Parker, Senior Social Worker Princess Margaret Children’s Hospital Child Protection Unit/Resolutions Consultancy and Andrew Turnell, Resolutions Consultancy Perth Western Australia

Bringing the Signs of Safety Home: The State of Play in WA

The West Australian Department for Child Protection, having been subject in 2006/7 to a major external review of its services has adopted the Signs of Safety approach as the central organizing framework for all service provision. In this presentation Kelly, Barbara, Sonja and Andrew will present the current state of play in West Australia as the Signs of Safety approach is taken up formally within the state and statutory Department that gave birth to the approach. This presentation will include: a little background to the current DCP situation (Kelly), examples and experience of using the approach in one district office (Barbara), using the approach in a Children’s Hospital (Sonja), a story of Fairys and Wizards (Andrew).

2.30 – 3.00
CONTACT _Con-41041157E0 Ann Gardeström, Pernilla Söderberg, Pirkko Alm, Ulrika Suschinski, Sweden

Implementation of Signs of Safety in Stockholm, Spånga-Tensta. What have worked, what have we done so far?
Ann will begin with an overview of what has worked for the social workers in Spånga-Tensta who have created a meaningful context for themselves and the families who they come in contact with. We have child protection workers who are proud of their work and who, despite an overload of work and low status, continue to create new ways of approaching children, young people and parents. One of our presentations of good examples will show how we, among other methods, have fitted in the ideas of the “Three houses model” in our context. We will show some conversations with children, both children in foster care and children that are under assessement. That part is Ulrika Suschinski, child protection worker, and Pirkko Alm, foster care worker, responsible of. The other good example is presented by Pernilla Söderberg, in the youth assessment team, who will present a case oconcerning honour related violence. Pernilla and her colleague Kristin Krabbe has integrated Signs of Safety with BBIC (assessment framework) in a handbook with the purpose to create tools for the social workers who meet these girls and boys.

Afternoon Tea

3.30-4.15
Lee Roberts National Manager Social Work Services and Mandy Wittmann National Manager Legal Services Open Home Foundation New Zealand

Implementing Signs of Safety in Open Home Foundation
Open Home Foundation of New Zealand (OHF) is a Christian Child and Family Support Service working with families in need of support and providing social work and foster care where needed. In 2005 our Chief Executive asked what it would take to implement Signs of Safety organisation wide. That is, across OHF's 14 service centres throughout New Zealand. This presentation outlines our journey over the last 3 years. What are the ‘signs of safety’ - what’s working well? What’s not working and what are we going to do about it?" One thing that has inspired us in our drive for excellence in practice is the voices of our children who have been in care. We want to share some of their thoughts with you also.
 

4.15-4.45
Janice Hyde, Service Manager, Family Works Northern, Tauranga.

Signs of Safety: A tool for building collaboration to create safety for children in our communities
If we accept the belief that “ agencies that work well together create safer communities” we must then ask, but how can they do this, when every agencies whether government or non government has different ways of working? One of the answers is to find a common tool. What are some of the successes of doing this, what are some of the challenges? How do two non-governmental agencies and one major government agency work together, harmoniously, not just collaboratively but side by side. How does a collaboration of 17 agencies work together to do this.? This presentation will attempt to address some of these questions, sharing experiences, challenges and successes from our local area,

Friday 29th August

9.00 – 10.15
Susie Essex and Margaret Hiles, Child and Adolescent Mental Health Family Therapy Team, Bristol, England

How do we co-create Future Safety Planning in Confusing and Disputed cases? Worrying/Confusing Child Protection Presentations, after Munchausen’s by Proxy/ Factitious Illness Spectrum/ Induced Illness

Unusual cases presented to General Medical Practitioners, Health Visitors or Hospitals where there seems to be no obvious medical based cause, whether it is minor injuries, undefined illness, food intolerance , apnoea, etc create complex concerns for Child Protection workers. Carers and parents are often difficult to engage around the concerns, as the concerns are often strongly disputed by not only parents/ carers but also the wider family. Future safety planning for these serious and unusual cases needs to address respectfully the complexity without losing sight of the child and the possible changes in risk that might occur over time if the concerns are left unaddressed, e.g. will concerns about a child’s vomiting lead to a focus upon possible food intolerance, although ultimately this may give rise to a concern about poisoning.

We will present material from cases we have worked with in composite form, in order to look at some of the key issues and dilemmas in these types of case. We will not go into detail of all aspects of the Resolutions approach that works with denial, but focus on how we have adapted the engagement stage of the approach to set a context for the work. We will then focus on future safety planning in such cases, covering some of the background knowledge that informs safety combined with families’ unique dilemmas and their ideas about how to address them. We discuss how this work includes the wider safety network both family and professional and consider their slightly different position in these cases.

Morning Tea

10.45 – 11.45
Dr Eileen Munro, Reader in Social Policy, London School of Economics

Reflections on the Presentations and Practice: Connections with International Developments, Theory and Research

We have the privilege of sharing these three days with Dr Eileen Munro who has generously offered to join us and Eileen is excited to have the opportunity to listen to the experience of practitioners from around the world. Drawing on her experience working with child protection systems in the UK and internationally and from her work in researching, analysing and writing about effective child protection Eileen will help us draw the gathering to a close by offering her thoughts and reflections on the three days’ presentations.

11.45 – 12.00
Close