'A follower of social pedagogy' - a social worker's view

Staffordshire County Council Children’s Families First Services have been developing and introducing social pedagogy for several years. This has included embedding the thinking, practice and ways of working that social pedagogy brings to improving services and outcomes for looked after children and young people. 

Within our locally based children’s homes all of our practitioners have been introduced to the model and have undertaken both introductory training and enhanced learning and professional development. Along with input from four European social pedagogues who have been employed within our service, this has translated into a significant change in the way we work, communicate and engage with our young people. 

Benefits for foster carers

Foster carers have benefitted from the same level of training and professional development at introductory and advanced level. It is now not uncommon to hear foster carers tell you that by understanding and using the ‘common third’, and by exploring different techniques and communicating with children their relationship has been enhanced, which it has led to a stronger understanding and appreciation of the child and young people’s journey. Relationships are important, and at the heart of social pedagogy, and indeed social work is building trust and valuing, caring for our children and young people. This really matters! 

We are seeing increased placement stability for young people as a result of social pedagogy, and will be evaluating this further in partnership with Loughborough University.

As the principal child and family social worker for Staffordshire I have been delighted to see that the social pedagogues continue to share their learning, skills and knowledge and cultural ways of working through the Head, Heart, Hands programme and within the locally based children’s homes. 

This national initiative is innovating how we improve outcomes for children and young people and is, I believe, really starting to gain momentum. 

I now count myself as an early follower of social pedagogy.

Impact across the service

Our senior leadership team within Families First understand the thinking and ways of working that social pedagogy brings to improving outcomes for our children and young people. The vision is shared across the leadership team, and it supports and challenges us to do better through innovation and practice improvement.

We are continuing to explore and develop how social pedagogy can be used across the early help and looked after children’s system. For example, our Independent Reviewing Officers (IROs) are working with the pedagogues to transform children’s reviews to make them more young person focussed and indeed ensure that the authentic voice of children and young people is firmly heard and understood. We anticipate this will lead to greater participation and involvement in decision making with children and their families.

Within my role as the principle social worker for Staffordshire the opportunity to work with such gifted and talented foster carers and social workers, and partnership agencies makes me reflect on the need to be more ambitious for looked after children and young people who leave care.

Our ambitions are clear, we see social pedagogy as a real opportunity to contribute to doing the right thing for our children and young people who deserve the best opportunities through relationship based care, help and support.

The Fostering Network brings together everyone who is involved in the lives of fostered children and young people to lead, inspire, motivate and support them to make foster care better. To support our work visit www.fostering.net/donate or to donate £10 text FOST37 £10 to 7007