Using knowledge exchange to bring about culture change in children and families social work departments

近几十年来，英语国家的儿童保护制度一直受到严厉的批评，以至于一些评论员得出结论，这些制度可能弊大于利。最近由英国政府资助、由艾琳·门罗教授主持的一项研究认为，儿童保护的实践和文化应该发生根本性的变化。具体来说，Munro认为“地方当局和他们的合作伙伴应该开始一个持续的过程来审查和重新设计儿童和家庭社会工作的方式，在适当的情况下利用有效的帮助方法和支持实践来实施基于证据的儿童和家庭工作方式”（2011年，第13页）。Munro认为需要“帮助专业人员从顺从文化转向学习文化”（2011年，第6页）。Munro的建议形成了该提案的中心目标：帮助两个地方当局的儿童和家庭社会工作者根据已知有效的证据审查和重新设计他们的服务，并在学习文化的背景下这样做。该项目的合作伙伴包括爱丁堡大学的社会工作和知识交流（KE）学者，以及爱丁堡市和东洛锡安两个邻近地方当局的主要管理人员和从业人员。该提案建立在之前一个成功项目的基础上，该项目涉及来自六个地方当局的学者和社会工作从业人员，他们共同研究了关于非自愿社会工作服务用户的有效实践，非自愿被理解为与社会工作接触的人。其中三个项目的重点是儿童和家庭社会工作。这项新提案将该项目的发现向前推进，将聚光灯投射到广泛的儿童和家庭社会工作实践中。从历史上看，社会工作机构投资于培训活动和倡议，希望在这些方面的学习可以从参与者级联到更广泛的组织结构。这种学习迁移的证据并不充分。相反，众所周知，很少的训练活动会对练习产生积极的影响。其中一个原因是，培训经常作为一个独立的活动发生，与组织或实践目标没有明确的联系。知识交流的模式，通过承认从业者为一个主题带来的先验知识、技能和价值观，被认为比传统的培训计划更有效地将知识转化为实践。在这个项目中，我们将利用具体的知识交流活动，这些活动来源于文献，并在我们之前的项目中证明是有效的，以帮助在合作伙伴地方当局中带来文化变革。我们的建议包括三个部分，一个横向部分将跨组织运作，讨论与当前关于儿童保护的论述有关的关键主题；一个垂直链，旨在支持从业者开发已知有效实践的示例；第三个链，将围绕有效的学习迁移与管理人员合作。综上所述，各个方面都符合Nutley等人（2007）的知识交流组织卓越模型，即组织与大学合作，成为当地实验、评估和实践发展的场所。我们的项目将为如何更广泛地实现儿童保护方面的文化变革提供指导和模型。因此，它将引起英国各地地方当局和政府机构的兴趣，从而有可能证明可证明的社会政策和实践效益。

Child protection systems across the English-speaking world have been subject to damning critique in recent decades, to the extent that some commentators conclude that they may be doing more harm than good. A recent UK government-sponsored review conducted by Professor Eileen Munro argues for fundamental change in child protection practice and culture. Specifically, Munro argues that 'Local authorities and their partners should start an ongoing process to review and redesign the ways in which child and family social work is delivered, drawing on evidence of effectiveness of helping methods where appropriate and supporting practice that can implement evidence based ways of working with children and families' (2011, p.13)' Munro identifies the need to 'help professionals move from a compliance culture to a learning culture' (2011, p.6). Munro's recommendation forms the central objective in this proposal: to help children and families social workers in two local authorities review and redesign their services in line with evidence of what is known to be effective and to do so in the context of a learning culture. The project partners include social work and knowledge exchange (KE) academics at the University of Edinburgh and key managers and practitioners in two neighbouring local authorities, The City of Edinburgh and East Lothian.The proposal builds upon a previous successful project, which involved academics and social work practitioners from six local authorities working together on small pieces of practitioner research around effective practice in working with involuntary social work service users, involuntary being understood as those whose contact with social work was mandated. The focus of three of these projects was on children and families social work. This new proposal takes the findings of this project forward, casting the spotlight across a wide spectrum of social work practice with children and families. Historically, social work agencies have invested in training events and initiatives in the hope that learning on these might be cascaded from participants into wider organisational structures. The evidence for this sort of transfer of learning is not strong. On the contrary, it is known that very little training activity results in positive changes to practice. One of the reasons for this is that training often occurs as a free-standing activity that is not clearly linked to organisational or practice objectives. Models of knowledge exchange, through recognising the prior knowledge, skills and values that practitioners bring to a subject, are considered to be more effective than traditional training initiatives in getting knowledge into practice. In this project we will utilise specific knowledge exchange activities, derived from the literature and shown to be effective in our previous project, to help bring about cultural change in the partner local authorities. Our proposal consists of three strands, a horizontal one that will operate across organisations to discuss key themes relating to the current discourse on child protection; a vertical strand, which will aim to support practitioners develop examples of what is known to be effective practice and a third strand, which will work with managers around effective learning transfer. Together, the various strands are in line with Nutley et al's (2007) organizational excellence model of knowledge exchange whereby organisations, working in partnership with universities, become the locus for local experimentation, evaluation and practice development.Our project will offer pointers and models about how cultural change in child protection might be brought about more widely. As such, it will be of interest to local authorities and to Government bodies across the UK and thus holds out the potential to evidence demonstrable social policy and practice benefits.