Steve Macabee
Welcome back once again to the Peapod, the Partnership Podcast from the Somerset Safeguarding Children Partnership. My name's Steve McAbee from the partnership. And and today we are picking up around possibly, I would say, one of the most important aspects around safeguarding children. And this is an issue that comes up time and time and time again.

And that's really making sure that we are understanding the lived experiences of children and we are fully understanding by assessing the needs of families. it's been highlighted time and time again in national reviews, and really importantly, more recently, with the updates and things like working together to safeguard children and the family's first partnership program, really making sure we are understanding children's environments, their lived experiences, and not just kind of engaging with one parent, writing a kind of formulaic assessment.

And then going away and a forming opinion about how we can best support those needs. And my argument has always been: unless we take the time to really understand the needs of a family, how can we make sure we're putting in the right support? So that's what we're going to be talking about today. And I am really pleased to be joined by a real expert in the field around this. And that is Jamie Barton, who's the senior trainer with Parent Assess. So, Jamie, thank you so much for joining us today. It's great to talk to you.

Jamie (01:44.6)
Thank you for having me, Steve. Good morning.

Steve Macabee (01:46.896)
Yeah, great stuff. Well, before we get into this, I I'm a conscious that parent assess may be known to quite a number of social workers listening to today's episode and it's it's quite a well-known model. But for anyone who doesn't work within children's social care or maybe has not heard of parent assess before, can you maybe just kind of explain what it is and and importantly kind of why it was established in the first place and and what the relationship to to parent assess around safeguarding in the country is.

Jamie (02:12.768)
Of course I can. Parent Assess was originally designed in twenty sixteen. So we are ten years old this year by a social worker called Sarah Lowe, who has since retired but remains in the background at Parent Assess, always guiding, likes to keep in in touch with updates and things that we're doing. And originally, so Sarah's really experienced, she's she's got a long history and background of working in quite specialist provisions, across learning disability.

safeguarding child protection, she's she's recorded a podcast to kind of record her story and and what led her to create parent assess. But essentially, like lots of social workers, she went off and did her what was called her PAMS training. So PAM stood for parenting assessment manual and it was a specialist assessment model for parents with a learning disability. So if a parent had an identified learning disability, they need a specialist assessment and PAMS is what we had.

And like we so often hear with with various practice models, feedback from families was very often that they were having assessments, reading them but not always understanding the outcome. Or or sometimes just not even reading them. Let's let's be honest. And Sarah felt that something needed to change. And also what was increasingly happening was that we were changing.

Parts of the model to meet the individual needs of parents, which you could argue we probably should be doing all all along. So in 2016, Sarah created Parent Assess, and she created it with the intention that each parent would have an individualised approach to their assessment based around their individual needs. That could be a learning disability, could be any other need, could be a learning difficulty, could be neurodiversity, mental health trauma, addiction, etc.

using a really simple traffic light-based system to understand risks, strengths. And it developed from there really. PAMS closed. Now I can't remember the year that Pam's closed now. That's gonna that's gonna be embarrassing. But a few years ago, PAMS closed. Sue McGraw retired and PAMS as a company closed, which meant that essentially you you you couldn't train any more social workers.

Jamie (04:39.534)
and parent assess had been sort of steadily increasing in popularity up to that point anyway. And at that point things just sort of exploded, for want of a better word, for parent assess and has continued since. So we offer training to social workers, it's a two-day assessors course to become trained to offer specialist parenting assessments. And Sarah decided in 2024 that she wanted to retire.

But she didn't want to close the company down or sell it, because then you have no say about what happens next. So she made the k the company, Parent Assess, into an employee-owned trust, which means that everybody works for Parent Assess has a say in how it is now run. So I think everybody bar our office staff and our director are social workers. We've all worked in management.

In the court system, CAFCAS, parenting assessments. So we continue to run parent assess and deliver the training. So I'll talk a little bit more about how the training is structured and how we've we've diversified and the workshops and things that we we offer, but essentially that's who we are, and that's how we started. with parenting assessments, which I I think the value base for starting parent assess is something that stayed with us, which is that.

Steve Macabee (05:42.385)
That's right.

Jamie (06:03.434)
All families, all parents deserve a service that is specialist, involves highly skilled workers, and we'll we'll meet the family where they're at. I feel we shouldn't be expecting families to adapt to fit our model of assessment. It should be us that that changes.

Steve Macabee (06:23.963)
Yeah, it's it's interesting and and I know you know you talked just then about making sure we are particularly engaging with those who are there might be some additional challenges for professionals in in understanding their needs. You talked about parents with with learning difficulties or disabilities and and things. So we yeah, if it's it's all right, we're good we'll look into that in just a second. I think that'd be really interesting. 'Cause I and I think one of the things I was really interested to talk to you about is that people often describe parent assess as being something that's quite different from a a air quotations kind of usual parenting assessment.

so what in practice, and you talked about the traffic light system just then, but in practice, what are those kind of key differences that pe professionals should kind of expect in how they they plan and conduct and and write up their assessments?

Jamie (07:06.22)
Well, if I reflect on I suppose my own career, when I was expected to do a parenting assessment years and years back in a in a sort of frontline Sage Guardian and court team, nobody ever explained to me what what what do you do? How do you structure an assessment? What what questions do you ask? And apart from showing me the assessment framework triangle when I first ever started to say these are the kind of headings that we cover in a parenting assessment.

the Department of Health Triangle, which I think's like twenty six years old or something now.

Steve Macabee (07:38.299)
Yep. Yeah, I think it's two nineteen ninety nine it first came out, I think. Really I think following that the Professor Eileen Monrose review back in two thousand eleven, the child centered system is when it really kind of got anchored, I think, as that kind of national framework that that really underpinned everything that we do.

Jamie (07:44.258)
Yeah.

Jamie (07:53.015)
Yeah.

Jamie (07:56.995)
And if you were really lucky, there'd be somebody in the team that let you have a look at their assessments. And if you're really lucky, your manager would sit you down and guide you through it. But it made me think that that kind of we had this sort of sort of standardised view of we need to make sure you talk about the child's life and and cover these headings. And there'd be headings like health education, which is of course that's important. But one of the things that I reflected on when I did my parent assess training was when you become a parent, you can plan.

And you can read and you can research. But do you know everything? No. You you don't know everything. And you don't have to know everything either. I think that's important to stress and and it's important to stress to parents because so many parents hear the word assessment and almost think of it like a test. You're going to Yeah.

Steve Macabee (08:32.539)
Mm.

Steve Macabee (08:49.327)
I was gonna say connotation of judgment, doesn't it?

Jamie (08:52.822)
Yeah, yeah, that you're somebody's gonna come round and either judge your home or judge your behaviour or the decisions you make for your children and the stakes are high, you know, that the they're fearful that you're either gonna make a recommendation that they may or may not be able to keep their children in their care. So I think one of the reasons people say it's not like a usual parenting assessment is is a phrase that we use a lot.

During an assessment, a parenting assessment, and it it is actually part of the processes. We the bulk of the main assessment sessions are called knowledge and confidence. And they're called that for a reason. as I said, when you become a parent, you need to know everything. No, you don't need to have lots of parenting knowledge. What you need to be able to do is have possibly the confidence or support systems in place to learn new information and and learn that appropriately and in a way that

That works for you and safely. and have the confidence to ask for help and to know how how you learn best, or to know what works for you and therefore for your children. A really good example I'll just give you from like from my own life would be yesterday. So I can never remember. This makes me sound like a terrible parent, but my brain just can't retain numbers, it's just not very good at it. And I know when children have a temperature.

what to look for, right? So I know when they feel hot. But I couldn't tell you like exactly the number that represents when children spike a temperature, if that makes sense. I know it's got to be somewhere around 38 and I should be worrying if it's 39 or 40. But I actually just can't retain it. So what do I do? Well I know how to use the thermometer, I know how to use my phone, I know how to access the NHS website. So

Does that make sense? Like that is my workaround for that gap in my knowledge.

Steve Macabee (10:48.059)
Yeah, absolutely. And just to use an example, actually, you know, you I I've got a digital thermometer, you know, one of those that you you point it at the forehead and bang. You know, it doesn't go bang, but you know. but I'm with that, it'll be green, which is fine, amber, which you need to be aware of, or red, it's like actually, yeah, this is a real issue here. So actually what you're describing is not unusual. You know, we w and you know, p parents, everybody, you've got to hold so much in your head.

Jamie (11:01.219)
Thank you.

Steve Macabee (11:13.561)
On a daily basis anyway. And I'm always a great believer. Every day is a school day. Every single day I learn something, including about parenting. You know, and like it's layer upon layer, isn't it? You build these up over time, over periods of time, and you always there's always a different situation. You're always learning something new. But it's that ability to be able to know where to accept that access that information. What you've been talking about. Actually, I don't know. I have not retained it in my head, but I know I can Google it and it will tell me.

Jamie (11:37.849)
can do this. Or and and absolutely, we live in an age where fur I mean, I don't know about you, but I Google things all the time. and we have d devices in our homes that you can ask questions to. But the the important part of parent assess is if parents do have gaps, that what we're doing throughout the assessment is we're safely gauging can they safely navigate those answers and can they do it consistently? Because it's fine being able to Google everything.

Steve Macabee (11:44.746)
yeah.

Jamie (12:07.384)
But can you safely navigate the internet and end up in the right safe place with the right safe answer? as we know, the the internet is full of really helpful and unhelpful information. So that and with a standardized parenting assessment and and previous assessment models, it was very much question answer. And parents had to give you an answer that was correct.

Steve Macabee (12:12.422)
Mm.

Steve Macabee (12:18.843)
Yeah.

Steve Macabee (12:32.827)
Right.

Jamie (12:32.874)
If you thought they knew the answer, you couldn't then follow up with further leading questions. That wasn't how the model was originally designed, although that's typically what people did in practice, because you can tell by asking someone if they're very nearly there, you think they've got it. But it was and that feeds into that pass or fail sense for parents. Well, I don't know this. Should I know this? if you would go around asking parents how they would deal with sickness, how they would deal with a high temperature.

If they also say I don't know, is it okay for us to teach them that little bit of information?

Steve Macabee (13:09.009)
but also I guess where is that where is that line that they should know and they shouldn't generate I could if my child has a headache, I'd know how to respond to that. But if they had, I know, a basic first aid, I could I could do that. But at what point are you expected to become a medical expert? Does that kind of make sense? Yeah, th there's a there's a continuum here, isn't there, of not knowing anything and being a brain surgeon? Where are we expected

Jamie (13:30.893)
Yeah,

Jamie (13:36.727)
Yes. And knowing it knowing enough. You know, if our concern is not about meeting your child's health needs, if it's about the decisions you make in your relationships outside of the home and domestic abuse, we might only focus on kind of basic care for a little part a little bit of time, sort of proportionately, if that makes sense. But if our concern for your family is the chronic health needs being neglected of your children,

Steve Macabee (13:38.691)
On that Yeah.

Jamie (14:05.154)
We're gonna spend quite a lot of time on that so that I can understand where the gaps are in either your knowledge or confidence or your ability to be consistent. Because sometimes, to coin a phrase, parents appear to have that knowledge. They appear to know why things are important, like attending appointments, like going to school on time. But the issue is the follow through and the consistency.

And therefore children are impacted by it because they struggle to then be consistent. So I when we talk about it, I suppose the feedback is that this isn't like a normal assessment, is that we're looking at sustainability really. If it's a knowledge gap, part of our job during the assessment as the assessor is to identify those gaps, signpost people to support, maybe even do a little bit of teaching and learning as part of the assessment to sort of

gauge. But do you remember I came to visit two weeks ago, Steve? And I actually brought that thermometer with me. And that's important because everybody learns differently. We do bring practical things into the assessment. We do observations, we bring practical learning tasks, we'll video doing practical learning tasks, we'll use YouTube, we'll do whatever works best for your learning style. And I think that's important that everybody

does learn differently. So we can't be just saying, well this because it's specialist assessment and you might have learning needs with used visual aids. Tick.

Steve Macabee (15:40.579)
Mm. Well, it's a bit like IQ tests, isn't it? I mean, people always say that an IQ test, all that that proves is how good at you are at taking IQ tests. Basically there's a famous quote by Einstein, I can't remember what it is now, you you may know it, of of something like if you if you test a tortoise of how well it can climb a tree, you're not you know it's gonna it's gonna come out.

Jamie (15:48.865)
It does.

Jamie (15:58.925)
Yes. It will spend its entire life thinking that it's stupid.

Steve Macabee (16:03.47)
Well, yeah, it's it's yeah. And I for me that has some really strong echoes with what you're saying now. and the other thing I wanted to pick up on around that, you we mentioned the the traffic like approach and I know that parent assess uses a lot of visual aids and and that traffic like approach. I I guess there there's potentially a criticism I can see coming from that of people saying you're you're sort of really dumbing down assessments, you're making them too simplified. So I know how do you kind of use those tools to to genuinely make

The assessment accessible while still keeping that that professional rigor as part of the process.

Jamie (16:39.224)
Well, really early on in the assessment, we ask the family how they see themselves. So we say to the family, Where what do you think you're good at? What are your strengths? And that's where we start to relay it to the traffic light base system. And I think it's important for f I I mean, we simplify it because visually we're going to present that information back to the family. And that is part of them understanding and being able to read and participate in the assessment rather than waiting for, let's say, twelve weeks.

And then getting a big long report, which they're may or may not read. So really early on in the assessment, we're saying, what do you think you're good at? What are the areas that perhaps you are in the middle, you're not not too sure about, or you need a little bit of help, and what do you think we're worried about? That's important because and we we know there are barriers to this. If you if I came round your house today and said, Steve, tell me all the things you're awful at, you're probably going to filter that information to me because you want to present yourself in the best possible light.

it's a it's a bit of a journey to be a bit of a I hate that phrase journey, but to to coin a phrase, journey.

In every parenting assessment I've ever read or been asked to do, we're also asked to explore the parents' insight into the local authority concerns. So we want to know what the parent knows, but we also want to know how much the parent agrees with the things that everybody else is worried about. So, in order to present that visually, we also ask the professional network, ideally the child social worker or whoever knows the family best.

To present the same information in the same way. So we use red, amber, green. And usually what happens, but not always, is if I was the social worker and you were the parent, I've asked you you, red, amber, green, and I've done the same, and we will have a visual side by side comparison. Sometimes we agree on things, and sometimes we may not. And that is the starting point of the rest of the assessment, is to say.

Jamie (18:47.394)
The job of the assessor is to look at what are the agreed strengths, what are the things we are really worried about. And again, that comes back to that, exploring knowledge and confidence gaps and risk areas. So things like domestic abuse, risk of sexual harm or exploitation, criminality, mental health, substance misuse. So kind of the big, big risk factors, if you like, which, as with any

intervention with the family, we become worried about blame, minimization, denial. So it does give us an opportunity using sort of if you think something's an amber but I think it's a red, a discussion point around why that is, why you less worried than I am, why am I more worried than you are? So yeah. No.

Steve Macabee (19:35.683)
Mm. Sorry, Jeremy, interrupting. Where you're talking, I was I was thinking actually with our within Somerset, we've got some of our tools and resources have have a summary sheet with them. We've got our effective support document, which is essentially what nationally you've passed as a threshold document. We've got things around neglect, we've got a family strengths and needs toolkit. Both of those have got a summary sheet on there where it's got essentially the kind of red, amber, green on there. And and I always within training say to people, you know.

I think it's a really useful tool personally, that summary sheet, because it, you know, it w two things for me. One, it it it paints an overarching picture, gives you a you know a nice visual summary. These are some of the areas that that you know things are working well. There are strengths there. Here are other areas of of kind of real need. But exactly as you've just been saying, actually it allows you to sit down and have that conversation. Cause often these conversations can be quite difficult, you know, unless you're very experienced, very skilled in in having conversations, particularly around issues like neglect.

You know, it just allows you to open up that conversation and and you know, explain, well look, you know, you've put this, I've put that this but also getting their opinion. You know, I okay, you've put that down as a green. Actually I've put this as a as a red because I'm quite concerned about X, Y, and Z. So you know, it's really interesting to hear why you know, why you feel it's now green and and I can explain about why I think it's in the red, sort of thing. And those descriptors part of that.

Jamie (20:54.86)
Yeah, and that's starting point. You know, at the beginning of any assessment we we hammer home on the training. This is something we must get done. Ideally in the first session, sharing the summaries by the second, because the value the valuable time that we have is the benefit to be able to reflect and to change our opinion if needed. So and that happens on both sides. So both the assessor, as they are completing the sessions and as they're doing other things like speaking to other professionals, doing observations.

are allowed to reflect on and reflect back to the parent about where they are now. And the parent is allowed to do the same. Because, as we said, it is a natural normal human reaction for perhaps you to be maybe a little bit defensive in those first few weeks when we first meet. But as the assessment progresses or as we do these knowledge and confidence sessions.

actually you can begin to soft soften sometimes and say, Do you know what? I I did really think I knew everything there was to know about children's health needs, but actually it turns out that when we talked about it a little bit more, there's quite a lot I don't know. yeah.

Steve Macabee (22:08.16)
It's it's inter sorry. I it's interesting actually as you're talking as well, 'cause just thinking we we did some work a while back when we updated some of our our tools and resources and health visitors were sort of saying to us when we were looking at our neglect tool, our our family strengths and needs toolkit, they were saying actually quite often they you were using it in the the almost the reverse of of how it was intended. Because when they were going through it with a lot of parents, new parents, particularly where there may be issues like postnatal depression, for example, a parent would be saying

Jamie (22:21.999)
Mm-hmm.

Steve Macabee (22:38.168)
I'm really bad. I'm failing my child. I'm terrible parent. And they would be kind of going through it, marking themselves, if you like, as all these kind of red saying, I'm I'm failing here. And actually they'll sit down and go through it and go, actually, let's look at this. Actually, you're doing all right. This is actually it's tough. It's hard. You're struggling at the moment, but actually you're meet you are meeting your child's needs. So it's almost a reverse. And I I guess you probably wouldn't see that as often, but that could be just equally as powerful, trying to understand actually.

Jamie (22:52.495)
Mm-hmm.

Steve Macabee (23:06.64)
the perception of a parent, if they're saying, No, I'm terrible, I'm a failure and you're going, actually you're okay. Yeah, that there's that's quite empowering, I think.

Jamie (23:14.519)
Or or you you can be okay and and so and and saying to families it's okay if this isn't the thing you're you're great at. That's okay. this is we can offer advice and guidance and sometimes things are just beyond what a family is able to do at that point in time. They just need a little bit of outside help. It could be because of their children's complex health needs, the number of children they have, as you say, like a temporary

mental health difficulty that's making life more difficult for them. And it's okay to say to parents that at this point it's okay to be amber. You could be amber forever. and I also say to parents quite early on in the assessment sometimes there are things that have happened in our lives which we are unable to change that may make us who we are today. And that's okay too because

it's about how we feel about them and how they affect our lives. So we may not be able to change that we had a really difficult childhood. We may not be able to change some trauma that happened in our life or our past relationships. We may rate all of those things red. But if our relationships today are rated as green, if our we rate our mental health as amber because we realise that we need to go and get some therapeutic help. That's important because it's

Those are the sort of I suppose the individual factors we look at for a parent, but always tying that into the effect it then has on their ability to meet their children's emotional needs or be consistent or ask for help when they need it. So it brings

Jamie (25:01.017)
I'm thinking about that triangle again visually in my head, but it's the relationship between those areas and the connection back to parenting. It's about that's all really lovely. Thank you for telling me all of that narrative in the assessment, Jamie. That's that's great. So what does it mean for the child? What's what's the impact? Why is it red effectively? because things may always be red, as we as we say, you can't change somebody's history. It's red now, but what what does that mean for this child?

Steve Macabee (25:08.112)
Mm-hmm.

Jamie (25:29.997)
Will the child be affected by that being read? And and it doesn't it's not a defining negative mark against the parent, if that makes sense. We just sometimes have to accept that that's where things are.

Steve Macabee (25:43.183)
Yeah. And and it's within that that bigger context, isn't it? And when you know, like say it could be it could be one area that's that's red. Importantly, you know, what what you've just said just now, one of the most important things is impact. It's the so what question all the time. But also that within that bigger context of everything else, you know, what does that look like? And it might be really significant for that child, but it might within the other context actually not have so much of an impact. And yeah, it's trying to weigh up all those things, isn't it? And

Jamie (25:56.75)
Yes.

Jamie (26:12.845)
Mm

Steve Macabee (26:13.136)
Just picking up on that actually, and you you've mentioned a few things already, and obviously we've been talking about adults with with learning difficulties or or disabilities. you've also mentioned just a second ago about parents who have experienced trauma. You've also kind of mentioned about domestic abuse and and other issues. And with with that, it's something that it gets highlighted time and time again. I I know the the national panel's latest report and the report before that really highlighted the the risk of

that single issue thinking and and just focusing on the most predominant issues that are that are arising, or particularly in terms of neglect, focusing on those really visual things that you can see. in terms of using parent assessed then, how can it it help to make sure we we avoid that single issue thinking and we we keep that holistic view.

Jamie (27:04.749)
I suppose it it does come down to the r the relationship between so the relationship between the the areas that we look at. So we look at parental functioning, we look at specific risk issues, we look at the lived experience of the child, we look at the support network, and we look at how the parent functions in terms of their daily life. Because it's in my view, it's it's an overlap.

Between those areas, which is where either change is going to be a change in support is needed, or it's going to be hindered, if that makes sense. Part of a good parenting assessment isn't just judging what a parent knows, it's gently inviting the concept of change because a lot of parents will find it incredibly difficult and incredibly shaming.

And also don't forget in the background we've got this fear-driven response all the time of I might lose my children at the end of this. To think about have my children been harmed? Have my behaviour or the behaviour of other people around my children that I may or may not have allowed had an effect on my children? Can life be better for my children? Do I really believe that life can be better for my children? Or do I feel so massively hopelessly overwhelmed that I don't think

sometimes there's any point in trying. And a parent's relationship to themselves, so the parents' relationship with their own history, their own understanding of their own development, their parent the parents' relationship with their children. I spoke to Dr. Alice Loving a few weeks ago and she did her PhD in something she called change facilitators and change inhibitor inhibitors. I can never get that word out properly. But one of the biggest motivators

And I I love this phrase, and I'm probably I'm probably paraphrasing here, but this is the way I remember it. Is a parent being genuinely motivated by nothing else but their pure love of their children, that that that passion, that drive of of being willing to do anything for your children. That's really powerful. And and that is something that I think can be and should be.

Jamie (29:29.015)
a driving focus of assessments is a parent's willingness and drive. Not that parents all all parents may say, of course I love my children, but sometimes they've got too much other stuff going on. They've and and I don't just mean physically, I can sometimes mean mentally, that it's like I often say this on the training that that it might not be the right time for the parent to go lifting the lid on all of that stuff that they're carrying mentally.

yes, so that kind of I am willing to do anything, I want to learn, I I'm motivated. Because sometimes even the parents who are in the darkest of places, even if they don't get to the end of their assessment and it's quote unquote a a positive assessment, the way that I view a positive assessment is that if we get to the end of an assessment process and the parent agrees on the things they still need to work on.

or agrees that now isn't the right time for their children to come home, which I makes me really emotional because I think that is the most selfless thing a parent can sometimes do is to get to an end of a process and say, actually I think I think you could all be right. I think I just I need to go and work on this, don't I? And actually my children might be better off at in this place at the moment. and maybe we come back to this.

Steve Macabee (30:52.708)
Mm.

Jamie (30:56.365)
So yeah, sorry I've gone I've deviated a little bit there but

Steve Macabee (30:59.278)
No, it's no, it's it's interesting and and I think you're right. And that you know, it must be one of the the hardest decisions sometimes for a parent to say, actually yeah, I I get this, you're right, you know. And it's but it the the important thing I think throughout all of this is always keeping that focus on the child. And and you're right, I think, you know, for for whatever reason, you know, and and usually it's multiple reasons, that parents parents struggle to focus on the needs primarily of their child above above their own. And that's not a criticism, it's just

Jamie (31:22.094)
Exactly.

Steve Macabee (31:28.612)
the reality of some some people's circumstances. but to actually to to get to that point to say, Yeah, I think you're right, I need to do this. And and that really for me demonstrates that that real that real focus on their child's needs and recognition of their own needs at that point in time. And that that balance between those two of those, which is so important, I think.

Jamie (31:52.568)
Yeah, because most parents sort of see it as as a bit of a kind of either or approach. They either feel like they're being criticized for not focusing on their children, therefore and and can't think about the fact that actually they do need to focus on themselves. they they probably do need to have a bit of nurture and a bit of self care and that's okay. Or to accept that they haven't had it and and they probably need it because

And and I I do think a lot about our care experienced young people who then go on to become parents, that through no fault of of their own, we remove them from their their families, usually because of risk. They grow up within a system that is nurturing and supportive, but at a level that probably is time limited. They then go on to become parents. And when do you need do you you don't stop needing your mum and dad at sorry.

You don't stop needing your mum and dad at twenty-six or twenty-five. When you become a parent, you need that help whenever you need it. And and I feel sometimes that when they become parents, we re-look at whether they've formed connections with their birth family. We relook at well who's in the support network. And in some assessments had to write, well, we were the support network. The professional network was the support network and we were there.

And then we weren't there, and now we need to be there again, but we're gonna be critical of the parent for needing us to be need to be there again, if that makes sense.

Steve Macabee (33:29.262)
Yeah. Yeah, no, it does. And and I I think you're raising a really important point as well. because I think quite often if if I go back to what what I talked about in the introduction, we talked about, you those changes in working together and we talked about the Family Special Partnership Programme and that having a really, really strong ethos around working with families and not doing two families. And I often say, sort of picking up from what you're talking about, I often say to people, you know, we we've gotta we've gotta

Jamie (33:42.67)
Mm-hmm.

Steve Macabee (33:56.975)
sort of flip that script. We've got to change the perception that we are there to criticize, to dictate. And if they don't do it, you know, parents don't do as we told tell them to, we're going to remove their kids off them. You know, that nothing could be further than than the truth. And, you know, when we talk about working in partnership with with parents, I often say to people, you know, at the end of the day, for the vast, vast, vast majority of parents, they want to be good parents. And at the end of the day, they do want to be doing what is best for their child. But for whatever reason,

Jamie (34:20.899)
Yes, they do.

Steve Macabee (34:26.36)
You know, as we talked about, things are getting in the way of that. And actually we want what is best for their child. So actually, if we can get on the same page to say, actually, we both want the same thing here. We both want best for your child. We want your child to thrive and be doing well. So actually let's work together on that. We're there to help and support as part of that. And but I can imagine as you're talking that where there are those additional complications, particularly, you know, parents with learning disabilities, there can be a real inclination from from

professionals to to do to more than do with parents.

Jamie (35:00.351)
Would yeah, sort of be critical for needing to plug gaps in ways that we may not plug gaps for other parents. And there was a phrase a few years ago, I don't think it's used as much as now, around the phrase substituted parenting. So if a parent couldn't do something because of their learning disability, then we might be critical of that. And I find that really interesting. So there's some there's a really

Good University of Bristol, they used to run the Working Together for Parents Network. That's now run by Research and Practice. It's free to be on their mailing list, by the way. And they do share some really good research from time to time, especially around learning disability. But on the University of Bristol website, School for Social Studies, I think it's called, they have got a whole load of research around the use of this phrase substituted parenting. Because

If we had a parent who had a physical disability, for example, was a wheelchair using parent, they are not all of a sudden going to have an ability next year that they don't have now.

Why are we more critical if that appears to be a cognitive need, if we can safely provide a solution? And the other the flip side of that from the professional network, which I I have seen in reports, especially in court reports, and I won't I won't finger point, but some professionals are overly critical and saying that, well, if we have professionals coming in or family members coming in multiple times a day to to plug this gap.

Then that's not okay for the child. But coming back to what you said earlier, actually it's about the effect on this child. So for some children, they can cope with going to day nursery from eight in the morning to six at night. That is their life. And that's a life that you might not choose for your children, or I might not choose for mine, but it works for some children. Some families live in multi generational households.

Jamie (37:13.305)
Children can cope with a variety of different caregivers, provided that the care is safe and consistent. if that is their it suits their sort of pattern, if you like. So, so their personality, their attachment needs, whatever. And so use using these blanket phrases like substituted parenting doesn't work for children, doesn't actually ring true.

So when we're doing parenting assessments and we are thinking about

support plans that are both sustainable and realistic, we need to have a bit of a mul first of all, we need a a kind of multidisciplinary agreed approach from everybody. Second of all, we need to be thinking about the individual needs of the parent and what they are, if they are disability related or not. Having an earning disability is a protective characteristic, same as any other disability would be. And we should not be judging more harshly.

And lastly, and probably most importantly, whatever we are doing, it's got to work for that particular child. So that's the part around this use of the phrase substitutive parenting that actually the research backs and practice should back. That we can't just use blanket phrases to say, well, that's gonna cost a lot of money for us to do that every month for six months for the rest of this child's life.

But for some families and and there is the working sorry, the good practice guidance, which was in twenty twenty one, re relaunched in twenty twenty one, which is the good practice guidance for working with parents with a learned disability, talks about the joint working protocol between both children and adult social care, particularly for parents with learned disabilities.

Jamie (39:13.475)
And we we used to get into this sort of game of ping pong tennis, it felt like, where we'd cherry pick the well that's a parenting issue. So children's services need to deal with that. well that's a that's an adult issue because that's the parents' difficulty. So adult services to play with that. And I love the document because it doesn't just talk about court and child protection, it just talks about everybody within both systems and how we can make them better.

I'd say actually if anybody listens to this and they have team meetings, it's just one of those documents that I would print off, share, just send to the team, bring to the team meeting and just have a chat about it. It's just one of those documents that's really helpful to know. it's essential reading if you're going to end up doing parenting assessments that could end up in the family court because that'd be the first question that a parents barrister will ask you if you've read, I would imagine. If you're aware of it. If you don't want to end up in hot water, read it.

Steve Macabee (40:08.986)
Thank you.

Jamie (40:10.243)
But it I mean it's not telling it's not as you say, it's not reinventing the wheel, but it it is important that we're thinking about individualised impact on families, not well, we can't really do that, can we? Or that's gonna cost a lot of money, isn't it? Well, sometimes we do need to be involved long term. Or sometimes we're involved for a little bit. You know, Section 17 or universal services, we dip in.

We help a family for a few months and we back away. For some families, that is their life until their children reach independence. And that has to be okay. That's what the system is designed to to do. Because the alternative is saying, well, we keep coming back every six months, so surely this isn't working. maybe this child will be better off somewhere else.

Steve Macabee (41:00.176)
It's it's an important parallel I think you you raised there about physical disabilities and and how those are perceived and and supported as opposed to to cognitive disabilities. And I I was thinking I I used to manage children's centers years ago and I remember there were I was talking to some health visitors and both parents of of the the new baby or baby to be to be born were were completely blind. And

Jamie (41:10.223)
Mm.

Steve Macabee (41:28.548)
The the the approach from the health visitors at the time was amazing. I this was a kind of new world for me. I hadn't managed children centers before. I hadn't particularly worked with health visitors before, but their approach was amazing. And it was very, you know, very practical based and embraced the fact they were both blind and and worked with them and put together so many techniques of Absolutely. It was brilliant. Yeah, and and all

Jamie (41:34.125)
Yes.

Jamie (41:48.943)
I bet they were really creative in some of the solutions they came up with.

Steve Macabee (41:56.695)
All these things as an able body person I would I would never have considered, you know, making up a formula bottle, for example, you know, and how challenging that can be. But so many creative ways of of meeting those needs. Yeah, exactly.

Jamie (42:08.803)
So let's apply that same principle, Steve. As a cognitively able adult, why are we not thinking the same way when we're supporting parents who might have just a different approach to learning and retaining information to us?

Steve Macabee (42:23.246)
Yeah, absolutely. And y you know, okay, often, you know, you mentioned costs, there are costs associated. People, you know, budgets are strapped right the way across the country. But I guess part of the argument would be, well, okay, if we're looking at worst case scenario that children need to come into the care system, what is the cost of that? You know, compared with putting in that that preventative, that that support? Absolutely.

Jamie (42:45.145)
Both the emotional cost and financial cost, a hundred percent. We we know, yes, safe certain solution, but not safe certain outcome, because we know that every time we move a child, move, not remove, but every time we move them, we're causing significant disruption. the I was gonna say to you, there is no cost sometimes to just going away.

Steve Macabee (43:06.68)
Mm.

Jamie (43:12.941)
And being a little bit more creative and thinking this prob this family has a problem. And it could be s I know it sounds really silly, but could be something as simple as struggling to tell the time. Could we not fund a clock that reads out the time or an Alexa in a family home? And provided that we have supported the family and tested out that they can use it safely, could that be a solution to a lot of planning and organisational difficulties?

Steve Macabee (43:43.259)
But but going back to what we were talking about earlier, in in essence, that's no different to what I was saying about my thermometer that I've got that goes green, amber red. It's it you know, it's those aids that we have that in everyday life that we all use and without even thinking about it sometimes.

Jamie (43:49.039)
Sweet.

Jamie (43:58.82)
So that's that for me, that is what is different in parent assess, both how we're assessing parents and how able we are to be willing to try different things to adapt and support to them. Now, yes, parent assess was originally developed for parents with learning disabilities, but what we're trying to say, and increasingly, is that every family I meet has a different need for a different reason, as you said, and often multiple reasons. Learning disability not just being one of them could be their trauma.

Domestic abuse, healthy relationships. why are we not doing that for everyone?

Steve Macabee (44:35.212)
Mm. Well that's that was going to be one of my questions really, because we and we talked about it being used within that the the so full social work arena environment. And you talked about it being used within the family court environment. But how can it be used or the principles of it be used by everybody, by anybody, particularly those I'm thinking today think within the early help kind of arena of support for families? how can they kind of adopt those principles or find out more about it?

Jamie (44:43.223)
Mm.

Jamie (45:01.731)
Well, it's very exciting that you should you should ask that because this is as Parent Assess has developed and as we've developed as a team, it's something we we feel incredibly passionately about. So we have developed an early help model which will enable some of our tools, our practice tools, to be used earlier with families to identify areas of risk, strength, things that need to be supported.

We have also adapted the assessment framework and support plan to connected carers because we recognise that families who put themselves forward to care for connected children, whether be that through whatever legal framework it ends up being,

I come back to my original thing that I said right at the very beginning of this. They have an assessment done. Nanny Doring, does she read and understand exactly what is in that multi, multi-page assessment? Does she understand the support plan at the end of it? I hope so, but my experience tells me probably not. So we want to make what we already do a bit more.

widespread and universal so that it can benefit more people. So we yes, we're looking at early help. Yes, we have developed some early help tools and we will be we've got some more information about that which I'll be able to share hopefully with you Steve and then that can be passed on. And the connected carers part of what we're doing, I'm piloting that in July and August with a view that we will be able to offer that as a rolling training course from September. Which is very exciting. and

Steve Macabee (46:42.404)
Exciting. Exciting. Yeah.

Jamie (46:45.281)
That's that's not and that's not without and there's two other things that I did I have to shoehorn in. talking working with parents in a trauma-informed way, because a lot of what we do, the the approach behind it, so I will come on to talk about observations and preverbal children just briefly before we finish today. especially in light of n the news events over the last week which have been horrendous. The

Steve Macabee (46:52.112)
Yeah, get in there.

Thinking it

Jamie (47:14.051)
Working with parents in a trauma informed way is a separate workshop that we now offer for parent for for anybody who is working with parents. So it doesn't have to be a parenting assessment. It is just talking with professionals about the best way to approach working with parents in a way that builds relationships that is respectful of their history and the way that parents may present in their behaviour. Because I

I am concerned that we are working with highly traumatised parents within a system that is unintentionally highly traumatising. And last but not least, using the parent assess framework to risk assess child sexual abuse. Because we know this stemmed from originally working with parents with learning disabilities that are vulnerable both themselves to exploitation, to harm, to their children being targeted.

And vulnerable children, so children who may have additional needs or or learning disabilities, and them being targeted. So these are additional workshops that we've I suppose developed over time in response to noticing patterns when we're working with families. So those are things that we're really proud of, I think, and that's that's part of the beauty of being an employee owned trust, is we have these like

Wouldn't it be lovely if there was if there was a course that you could do that was like this? And then the answer is a bit like Sarah Lowe's original idea in twenty sixteen. Well, there isn't, so why don't you make one?

Steve Macabee (48:37.55)
Mm.

Steve Macabee (48:47.546)
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. I'm a great believer in that. It's and I'd yeah, I'd love to pick up on on that with you a bit more at you know at some point in the future as as things are developed. And yeah, for anybody listening to this now, obviously have all the information we can give is correct at the the time recording this, but you know, as as more information comes in, we'll we'll, you know, make sure we promote that and post that and if I can add it in the description or for the episode, but also we can put things through our learning bulletin and and others 'cause I think that's a really exciting development, particularly thinking about that that early help.

kind of arena and and supporting professionals in this this way, which I think is so important.

Jamie (49:20.931)
I do know, Steve, because I've trained your staff in Somerset both on the two-day assessors course, but I also know that we have offered the observation workshop. So the three-hour observation workshop. So the two-day assessors course is obviously two days long, clues in the name, to enable you to do parenting assessments. But a key part of day two is that we look at both mentalisation, attachment, and the behaviour of pre-verbal children, because safeguarding reviews tell us.

And all of the research tells us, including reviews by people on the NSPCC, that the children at statistically highest risk of death, serious injury, and not very nice things happening to them, are pre-verbal children and children under the age of two. So we spend a whole section of the morning looking at behaviour cues, the power and observation, and that now is a standalone course, which I know we have offered to members of your team and

increasingly now other family time services, which is amazing because we're not only offering a safe family time service, we're offering a which we which I mean or hopefully all family time services or that offer supervised family time are safe. But what I mean is that we're marrying up what the person in that room that sees that family three times a week for an hour and a half is seeing with the thing that the assessor may see when they come in.

Because so increasingly I feel like we're there to just sort of supervise and make sure that nothing really bad happens in that room. But when we're watching children spending time with their main caregivers, they give us so much more than that.

Steve Macabee (51:06.072)
It it's the so what again, isn't it? Yeah, you can you can do an observation and say the the dad spent time playing with the child. Well okay. Yeah, that tick. But actually what does that mean? What yeah, the what does that actually mean for that child? What does that look like? What is the the response from the child? What is that that two way response between parent and child? Are they right.

Jamie (51:07.938)
I won't.

Jamie (51:14.146)
Lovely.

Jamie (51:25.431)
Yes. And we nickname we nickname that the dance, Steve. So that two-way interaction is really important. It's one that's really important because I want to know what how that child feels and how they responded to the things that you're telling me you've written in your notes. And the example I give is a bit like you just said. So if mum kisses the baby, lovely, I read sentence all the time, Mum kissed the baby. That's really nice. That's only half a dance though. So I want to know.

When mum kissed the baby, what did the baby do? it's it's factual, so it's like when then. When mum kissed the baby, the baby made eye contact and smiled back at mum. That tells me in that moment they were having a lovely dance. If mum kissed the baby and the baby scrunched his closed his eyes and scrunched his face up and turned his head away, that probably tells me he wasn't in the mood. Do you see what I mean?

Steve Macabee (51:58.819)
So it's not even.

Steve Macabee (52:19.61)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, absolutely. And that's again, it's it's it's that greater depth, isn't it? The greater depth of things is it's not just the what, it's the so what and and really trying to understand what that translates as into when, you know, for professionals thinking about actually what how does this again relate back to the child. So just to start rounding things off, I guess. I mean we I think for anybody who's not used parent assess before or quite keen now after listening to this, thinking, shit, I'd love to sort of put that into practice a little bit. What what sort of top tips or

Or takeaways would would you give them?

Jamie (52:53.06)
for parenting assessments or for just

Steve Macabee (52:56.836)
I I would say sort of assessments in in general. For those that haven't done the kind of parent assess training to do formal assessments, maybe think about that early help arena. Are there any kind of top highlighted things you'd takeaways that you'd want to say? Actually, yeah, you need to keep this in mind.

Jamie (53:06.143)
Mm.

Jamie (53:12.077)
Definitely spending, even if it's just the first hour, the first session, building a relationship, getting to know the family and and as you sort of explained at the beginning, finding a bit of an agreed okay, this is where we're starting, let's agree to start here. Because you can nearly always find a point with a family of of where you're gonna start and what you're gonna start on.

Jamie (53:37.208)
That is a bit more realistic and sustainable to build a relationship. It's also not as harsh to come in and go and these are all the things you're bad at. Look at this 20-point plan we've got to work through that's massively overwhelming. you haven't read it. Check accessibility. Check accessibility with every family you're working with. Everybody learns differently. I think the average reading age in the UK is between eight and ten years old, but yet we're still expecting people to read things.

It is okay to work with families in a different way. And when you are we we all have to keep notes, we all have to write reports. That is the world we live in as countable professionals. But it is also okay to think about how we write about people. I it is okay to use people's names and preferred names because parents need to understand who we're talking about.

And children need to understand who we are talking about if they come back and read this one day. So I think those would be my I suppose bookends really, because one you do one at the start and you do one at the end. But use of language, making things accessible, say difficult things in a kind way.

Steve Macabee (54:55.064)
And I I think I again for those that are attending my training, you'll quite often hear me say this, is that I think as professionals, sometimes we like to prove or demonstrate our professionality by using fancy phrases or fancy words to to demonstrate how professional we are. And I'll often I'll often tell you Yeah, well, it's a good point. Well, it's a good point. And I I quite often sort of talk about how when I used to l manage frontline practice, there was a new member of my team, she was undergoing her

Jamie (55:12.793)
Great. Who are you trying to impress?

Steve Macabee (55:24.74)
Her induction. It was the first ever early help assessment she'd ever written. And I read it, and it was genuinely, I think, one of the best early help assessments I'd ever written, I'd ever read. Because it was, it was brilliant. It was written in a very clear, very straightforward way, very understandable. d from memory, I don't think the parent had any learning difficulties or anything, but didn't have a particularly sort of strong reading ability, per se. And it was written in a very simple, very straightforward way, absolutely crystal clear.

Jamie (55:49.261)
Mm.

Steve Macabee (55:54.669)
Anybody could have read that, stuck it up on the fridge and understood it. And and she was very proud of it. There was another professional, and I won't point fingers, I won't know names. There was another another professional who was very critical of it and said it was amateurish, which really upset her. And and I similar to what you've just said here is actually who are you trying to impress here? Who are you writing this for? What's the purpose of this? And actually, I don't think I think actually it's far from amateurish.

Jamie (56:15.673)
Who are you writing it for?

Steve Macabee (56:24.354)
I think if anything it demonstrates a real professional ability to meet the needs of families and

Jamie (56:30.283)
It's so it's respectful. And do you know what? A lot of people say, well, we have to write professionally because we it we might end up writing to the judge. Do you know what? Even the judges like it. The judges like it when you say it how it is. And the judges like it even more when they can say what you've said right back to the family in a simple, straightforward way. And I say this kindly, those judges are really clever. They're they're really clever for a reason. They've been to school for a long time. So their vocabulary

is often very different to the families that we're working with. So if we can say things in the way that our families will understand, the judges basically know they can copy what you've said back to the family and they should still understand. Does that make sense?

Steve Macabee (57:13.676)
no, it it does. It does totally. And it again it's it's you know, what is the purpose of these things? Actually, what are we trying to get from this? And and are we achieving that by writing things full of acronyms? Acronyms Yeah, absolutely. It it doesn't help anybody. So yeah, I think that's one of my my top takeaways sometimes is actually don't dumb it down. Like say say things you know, just clearly and be very c clear about what you're saying, but just avoid this

Jamie (57:27.287)
My name's John, okay.

Jamie (57:39.139)
Yeah.

Steve Macabee (57:43.13)
This desire that we have to try and prove how professional we are in the way that we write in such a fancy way.

Jamie (57:49.114)
There's some nice articles that have been written by other members of the parent assess team on our on our website actually. So there's yeah, about langu use of language, things like that. Sorry, so

Steve Macabee (57:56.027)
Well that yeah and that leads on briefly to my yeah, what I was thinking really is is about sort of, you know, if people want to find out more about about things. And I do know and you you mentioned at the start, but I do know you've got your own wonderful podcast series now as well. so yeah, where can where can people find out about resources and information, your podcast and everything else?

Jamie (58:14.371)
Well, typical social workers, like we're clearly here to be helpful and not to make reams and reams of money. So we give out loads of information all the time. So the first thing I would say is have a look on the parent assess website at the articles page because there's some helpful practice guides in there. There's a really good one about pre birth assessments and ethically when we should start reassessing parents who need parenting assessment, use of language and who we're trying to impress, so that theme that you just picked up on.

lots of I think there's about six or eight articles in there that are are really good and we're gonna add more. So we are going to add more and and particularly wanna touch on and talk about some of the recent safeguarding reviews that been coming up, Sara Sharif and when the time comes the recent child deaths that have been in in the news just just this recent week or so. And then have a look at so on the podcast what we

We're not just talking about parenting assessments, I suppose we're talking about practice themes, a bit like this. So we invited Sarah to come and talk about her story. We talked about the history, the sort of social history in the UK of learning disability, which I found fascinating because Sarah Sarah actually worked in the closing down of the the wider institutions when they were happening in the eighties and nineties. which obviously we are so young we would not have remembered any of that time, Steve, because we we weren't

Steve Macabee (59:39.288)
Absolutely don't know what you're talking about even.

Jamie (59:41.124)
We weren't born or we were still at school. So that was really interesting to learn all about that. our podcast as well, we invited Judge Patrick Perisco to come and talk in his capacity as a family drug and alcohol court judge. And I love listening to him talk, and I'm not just saying that because he's a judge and I'm trying to impress him. he is a really interesting person to listen to. And then as I said before, we had Dr. Alice Loving on and she talks about mentalisation based interventions with parents.

Now that sounds really complicated, but when you listen to her talk about it, it is lovely. So talking with parents about what motivates them, how much they love their children, and how we can weave that into everything we're doing. Early help, child protection, parenting assessments. So that's where you can find us. I think you can download it off of any

podcasting platform. So Apple, Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts, it should be there. So it's just called the Parent Assess podcast. yes. And social media platforms are LinkedIn. So that's where we tend to put most of the information out.

Jamie (01:00:53.707)
I now can't hear you, Steve. You're muted. How'd you do that?

Steve Macabee (01:00:59.184)
I am sorry, I've been trying to mute myself because I often it picks up from the microphone into my my headphone or headphones from the microphone and gets these weird little splitches every now and again. But but anyway, so yeah, so it I think that's am I right in thinking it's parentassess.com is the website. So

Jamie (01:01:12.365)
Yes. Just parentassess.com is is our is our main website. That's where you'll find everything. The last thing I was going to say, which I'm sure you already know about this, but you can signpost people if they don't know what should be in a parent assess assessment, or you're commissioning them externally, because sometimes we don't have enough people or courts instruct other people to do them, and you're looking at a report and you're thinking, I don't know about this. Is this is this really a good parent assess?

Steve Macabee (01:01:28.058)
Yeah.

Jamie (01:01:40.333)
We've got a quality assurance guide. You can download it for free, download it externally. We've done that so that anybody can download and look at what we say. This is what we teach on the course, and ideally this is what should be in a in a parent assess assessment. So that is an external download on our website that you can use. And we're doing that to help solicitors and judges as well, and even families to know what should be expected as a practice standard when they do have a parent in assessment.

Steve Macabee (01:02:09.37)
Fantastic. Jamie, thank you so much for that. It's been really interesting talking to you. And and yeah, I'm really ex genuinely really excited about sort of how things develop over time 'cause it sounds like you've got a a lot of a lot of things in the in the works at the moment.

Jamie (01:02:14.169)
And sounds

Jamie (01:02:22.759)
Mm, well thank you for having us. Always an absolute pleasure to well I like coming to Somerset in person. So if if you know, if you need any more training, I'm h more than happy to put it all down to Somerset. But we do do training online, so you know, needs must.

Steve Macabee (01:02:36.164)
Perfect. Well yeah, no, we'll we'd love to get you down at some point. It'd be great to be great to see you in person. So brilliant, Jamie. Thank you so much for your time. Really appreciate it. And absolute pleasure. And yeah, hopefully we will be catching up again at some point very soon, I hope. Yeah. Brilliant. Thanks, Jamie. Take care. Bye bye.

Jamie (01:02:44.271)
What do you mean?

Jamie (01:02:50.553)
See you soon.

Steve Macabee (01:02:56.002)
Okay, you good with that? Great stuff. Is there anything else you wanted to say that you didn't get a chance to? No.

Jamie (01:02:58.019)
Lovely.

Jamie (01:03:02.4)
No. The only thing No, no, I we kind of ta touched on it a little bit. All I kept thinking

Steve Macabee (01:03:08.003)
All right.