a Social Work Practitioner or Social Work Student to help us build and strengthen our networks, explore new communication channels to deepen the impact of our work

The challenges and complexities of working in the human service field are varied and multi-faceted. Supervisors of practitioners require a range of competencies to ensure safe and ethical practice. The ability to take account of self and think reflexively is a crucial attribute of the thoughtful and effective supervisor

Welcome to the first issue of 2023. This issue includes papers on a range of topics and themes which display the breadth and depth of practice issues that feature in contemporary social work practice.

This article is about children in care and their multi-professional care networks. The article proposes that professionals in the field committed to extending their appreciations of how to listen to and improve the ways in which they care for children could usefully add the lens of childism to their repertoire of practices.

Richard Devine asks:
How realistic is it that I can form a therapeutic relationship in such a fraught context? How can I make sense of the gulf experienced between this encounter and the idealised concepts heavily promoted in social work literature? Ideas such as coproduction, collaboration, empowerment, and anti-discriminatory practice.
Ideas such as unconditional positive regard, genuineness, and empathy.

“The Russian invasion of Ukraine has sent shockwaves across Europe and I have been struck how this applies at individual as well as governmental and institutional levels.”
In this reflective piece, Nigel Elliott delves into the history of Russia and Ukraine, shedding light on matters of nationhood and the possible part played by the West’s interactions with Russia, in response to some of the troubling questions the current conflict presents.

Winning entries from 2017 to 2021