Working with Conflict and Hostility 24/25

TARGET GROUP

This training is targeted at:

• Professionals in direct contact with children who undertake or contribute to risk assessments and multi-agency meetings including social workers, family support workers, health professionals, schools, police and others who work with children at risk of abuse, neglect and exploitation who work for the London Borough of Sutton.  

Competency level: 

 Level 3 (predominantly working with children) or above (including strategic leads) as set out in the Safeguarding Competency framework in London Safeguarding Child Procedures. NHS Inter-Collegiate Standards 2 and above for health professionals

AIMS

The aims of this session are: 

• To enable professionals to work effectively with resistant and hostile families and know how to mobilise the partnership in the event of an escalation of threats and violence towards professionals.
• To consider the dynamic between professionals, parents and the wider relationships with family members by exploring issues of power and control, and other deep rooted psychological factors. It provides effective approaches to conflict management, and strategies for working confidently with these families on a multi-agency basis.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

By the end of the course, participants will have:

• An increased knowledge around the paramountcy principle and the importance of the voice of the child in all stages of the CP process;
• An increased knowledge on how to engage with families to lessen the likelihood of resistance or aggression;
• An increased knowledge to recognise signs of disguised compliance, coercive control and other strategies used to deter professionals, and its implications for risk assessment;
• An increased knowledge to use messages from serious case reviews to inform their professional practice;
• An ability to examine own and other professional's response to resistant/hostile families and impact on worker/professional networks;
• An ability to describe a model for the assessment of parental motivation and capacity to change;
• An ability to describe what leads some families to be reluctant, resistant and hostile towards intervention by agencies;
• An increased knowledge to employ effective responses in engaging families which take into account the principles of anti-discriminatory practice;
• An increased knowledge around the conflict theory and how the use of power is exercised in the professional relationship;
• An increased knowledge to develop strategies to ensure that they implement safe working practices by clearly assessing any risks to personal safety;
• An increased knowledge to use supervision and support effectively to identify and manage cases where parents display these characteristics;
• An increased knowledge to develop action plans to work more effectively with families who are aggressive, resistant or reluctant to engage;
• An increased knowledge around the importance of record keeping and the impact if records are used within a legal process.