From 16.10.2024 – 17.10.2024, international professionals met in Böblingen (Baden-Württemberg) to report on their successful practice of systemic solution-focused work in child protection. During the two-day conference “Celebrating Good Work”, professionals from Switzerland, Belgium, Austria, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Germany exchanged ideas and discussed their experiences.
The idea of making signs of safety in work with children and families visible and anchoring them in the long term was the common thread running through the two days.
Harry Henning, Head of the Böblingen District Youth Welfare Office, welcomed the participants and encouraged them to shape child protection with clarity and structure and with the involvement of families in a transparent and respectful manner. This also contributes significantly to the safety of employees.
Meike de Wit and Laura Toth Title show their work on an explanatory story (Words & Pictures) about a sick parent and how a network helps to create a safe context for the children.
Marianne Roessler and Wolfgang Gaisswinkler, Network OS`T Austria, argue for a culture of learning about success and the “how” – “How can cooperation and desired futures be developed with seemingly difficult families and how can positive changes be made visible?”.
Anna Titze, social worker and doctoral candidate at the University of Koblenz, will present the first exciting results of her research on the topic of “Challenges in the participation of children and young people in child protection from the perspective of professionals in youth welfare offices”. She shows that “solution-oriented methods work” and that participation is the most important element in the work. According to the initial results, participation appears to be dependent on the knowledge and attitude of the professionals. A lack of structural and personnel resources and unclear mandates create fear and uncertainty.
Under the title “Meaningful measurement”, Susanne Olpen (Breisgau Hochschwarzwald) and Claudia Kalvelage (Hamburg) look at how the effectiveness of safety-oriented working methods can be evaluated. Surveys of all those involved in the help process, such as file analysis and data evaluation, are described as building blocks.
In the workshop “Vision Signs of Safety/Solution-oriented approach in residential & outpatient care” with Kevin van Bedts (Director of “De Oever” Flanders, Belgium), he will demonstrate the benefits of working with networks and safety planning that focuses on a child remaining in the system of origin. “De Oever” has 150 employees and supports 300 families every year. “You also need politics,” says Kevin van Bedts, as these working methods also need a framework that enables and supports them. The implementation process and the development of a common understanding took five years at “De Oever” and was supported by the management, the trainers and everyone who works with children and their families.
Kevin van Bedts describes how the establishment of flat hierarchies has facilitated implementation. Employees need good conditions, be it variable working time models or the support of their superiors, in order to change their practices and act independently.
For Van Bedts, a home is not a permanent place to live, which is why the child’s goal is to return to the family, provided there is long-term security and protection. In public discourse, the legitimization of out-of-home care is often formulated as “damage limitation” for the child. This underestimates the fact that placement outside the family can also cause additional harm. Furthermore, transgressions of boundaries in institutions are generally not discussed very much. The involvement of those involved and the joint creation of safety plans enables further development within the family system.
Katja Berg and Claire Ierace from Luxembourg deal with the topic of “Networking across national borders”. They show how they drew up a safety plan for a drug-addicted mother together with the network. The formulation of a risk statement and the corresponding safety goal are described as the basis for the process. Aspects such as signs of safety, triggers of harmful behavior, warning signals are developed as parts of the safety plan.
The online contribution by Prof. Dr. Stefan Godehardt-Bestmann (Berlin) emphasizes the effectiveness of words and images and points out the important function of language in working with clients. It is necessary to speak concretely about observable behaviors. For him, participation takes place in the interplay of lifeworld and life situation. Signs of Safety offers a variety of tools and procedures which, according to Godehardt-Bestmann, must be further developed “into proactive, social space-oriented child protection”.
In their article “Signs of Safety – No words needed!”, Lea Renz and Orawan Khamchu (Biberach District Youth Welfare Office) report on how they have succeeded in working with parents who are unable to read and write due to illiteracy and have limited attention due to mental illness and medication. They did the mapping using pictures instead of words to help the parents understand the concerns of the professionals and everyone involved in the support process. They used imagery to develop a risk statement and the safety goal.
In a “Words and Pictures Statement”, Jennifer Höfler presents the story of Corina, who lived in various institutions over many years. The pictures show the different stages, people and challenges. At the end – with great courage – the speaker reveals that this is her personal story.
The workshop Ethical Inquiry in Domestic Violence – Working with Perpetrators with Sabine Epperlein & Sabine Bachner introduces the method of “Ethical Inquiry” by Ryan Greenwell (Australia). Specific interview practices are intended to enable offenders to own up to their actions, which is an essential prerequisite for safety planning. A video sequence is used to illustrate the type of questioning. Ethical inquiry or ethical questioning “is a questioning approach that involves respectful and responsible conversations through the discovery of the perpetrator’s own ethical preferences/attitudes in relation to family violence”. A working relationship will be established through a variety of questions. The speakers identify the three most common mistakes in communication with perpetrators as a) oppositional communication, which is often accompanied by confrontation and rebuke; b) open questions at the beginning of the conversation, which invite the perpetrator to present his version of things and thus make it much more difficult for professionals to maintain accountability and c) conformist communication, which creates a common language between the interlocutors that focuses agreement on irresponsible positions. They show what possibilities this can open up for safety planning.
The workshop: Safety planning, Freya Daems & Marianne Mattheus from Belgium will focus on the many years of experience of the outpatient team “Traject” and their successful practice in implementing safety planning. They report on their search for a family social network, the involvement of children and visualize their work to establish safety in the family.
The workshop: Network Planning with Soraya van der Veen & Ria Vink, from the Stadskanaal region in the Netherlands, also demonstrates working with the family’s network. The participants can experience how the network can be found, activated and maintained. They will share their practical insights into “Family Finding/Family Seeing” and report on their work with the network over time.
The workshop: Implementation in Austria with Andrea Jedinger, provides in-depth insights into the process of implementing the solution-focused approach in child and youth services in Upper Austria. She contributes her experience and knowledge of how an organization with more than 1000 employees can change. Individual steps that have contributed to successful implementation will be discussed.
We all speak a common language for child protection! This could be the encouraging conclusion of this enriching international professional exchange.
You can find a summary of the conference here
