Welsh social workers’ conference focuses on families and relationships

A conference for consultant social workers has been held in mid-Wales, with the focus on ‘putting families and relationships at the heart of social work practice.’

Supported by the Care Council for Wales, the Social Services Improvement Agency (SSIA) and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, the conference was aimed at those practitioners interested in the role consultant social workers can play in practice and service development.

The guest speaker was Dr Pamela Trevithick who is the Visiting Professor in Social Work at Buckinghamshire New University and also Project Co-ordinator for GAPS – a membership organisation set up to promote therapeutic and relationship-based practice, and psychodynamic and systemic thinking in social work.

Dr Trevithick talked about the impact of managerialism on social work – a theme explored in a journal article ‘Humanising managerialism: reclaiming emotional reasoning, intuition, the relationship, and knowledge and skills in social work’ (Trevithick 2014).

This paper and its theme is the subject of four forthcoming national and international conference presentations in Scotland, the Republic of Ireland and Wales – and can be accessed free of charge via the GAPS website here: www.gaps.org.uk

There were also workshops facilitated by Nick Andrews from Swansea University, and presentations and workshops by consultant social workers currently practising in Wales, talking about how they keep the voices of families at the centre of their work.