Social Work – Working for Families

In 2012, Cambridgeshire Children’s Social Services began a major service transformation to adopt the Social Work – Working for Families model (SW:WFF). Based on reports of the successful Hackney Reclaiming Social Work model, there was a restructuring to small social care teams, normally of 4.5 whole time equivalents, including a clinician. While there was some evidence to suggest that the changes to practice and managerial reorganisation involved in SW:WFF were effective in the densely populated inner city setting of Hackney, there was no evidence for how such a service transformation might translate into a mixed urban, suburban and rural setting. Introducing this model into Cambridgeshire involved relocating staff across the county as well as developing new ways of working. An ambitious programme of systemic training for the workforce was undertaken. The systemic approach was designed to underpin 3 domains: practice with service users; leadership and management of the social work task and interagency working.