Books

Proactive Child Protection And Social WorkProactive Child Protection and Social Work (Transforming social work practice series).
Co-Authored With N.Duckett (2016)

Protecting children from abuse and neglect is a serious and complex area of social work practice and for many students,understanding the essential skills of communicating, listening and understanding children’s behaviour is essential.
The highly-regarded, revised Second Edition explores these skills in detail while the ethical and value base of social work practice underpins the text.

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Book Review: Journal of Critical Social Policy 2008: Vol 30 (3) 443-445

Critical Social Policy

Communication-with-Children-and-Their-FamiliesCommunicating with Children and Their Families: Responding to Need and Protection.
Co-Authored with E. Kerrigan Lebloch (2013)

Good communication skills are essential for effective social work practice. This is an innovative book that uses scripts from real life situations to demonstrate every day scenarios social workers encounter when communicating with children and their families. Each scenario presents best practice and also common pitfalls that workers could fall into.
Relevant theoretical frameworks, legislation, policy and ethical dilemmas are included for each situation.
This book will give social work students and professionals a thorough understanding of the best ways to communicate with children and their families in complex and challenging situations.
Book-Review-Br-J-Soc-Work-2014-Turbett-477-8

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Joint Investigation In Child Protection. Working Together – Training Together.
Co-Authored With D.Townsend (2008) 

Addressing work done by police officers, social workers and any other professional linked to safeguarding children boards, the Joint Investigation in Child Protection manual can help everyone involved to: understand and recognise what constitutes significant harm focus on the children involved develop suitable investigative skills, understand the roles of fellow professionals from all other agencies sufficiently well to work effectively with, and if necessary, challenge them.
The Joint Investigation in Child Protection manual has as its primary purpose the joint training of specialist police officers and social workers.
But the manual can also help all LSCB-linked agencies achieve their performance objectives, including: – health workers in PCTS and hospital trusts – teachers and education staff in formal and informal education – social workers in children s and adults services and other local authority workers such as housing staff – probation officers, and staff in the prison service, secure provision and youth offending teams – police officers who work with children – staff in the voluntary and private sectors delivering services for children and adults – religious leaders and volunteers providing services to children within faith communities.

Workers from all of these backgrounds, with varied levels of experience, knowledge and prior learning can benefit from this training s approach to child-centred interviewing.
The Joint Investigation in Child Protection manual: – challenges and goes beyond existing government guidance in ways that can significantly improve safeguarding and protecting work with children and young people. – follows English and Welsh statutory guidance, and is adaptable for use in Scotland and Northern Ireland – contains a wide range of 23 presentations and 31 activities, which specialist police and social work trainers working and training together, demonstrating their flexibility and expertise across disciplines – can pick and choose from to design their own 5-day course, depending on participants experience and needs, including those who needs may be at an introductory level.
And trainers will still have further materials left over for use at other times: this is a rich and extensive resource. The manual includes a wide range of materials suited to adult learning such as role plays, carousels, storytelling and quizzes. – is available at a price commensurate with the budgets of even the smaller organisations that are involved in this work; or of agencies of any size for whom this work may be crucial, but which perhaps is not their principal undertaking.

Both training manuals were reviewed by Helen Brown for the British Journal – of Social Work. Vol 39:3. pp575-578

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Russell House Publisher information.

The Investigative Interviewing Of Children: Achieving Best Evidence.
Working Together – Training Together.
Co-Authored With D.Townsend (2008) 

Designed to help improve the investigative interviewing of child victims and witnesses in possible child abuse cases and entirely applicable when undertaking investigative interviews with children in any other circumstances this manual provides material for extensive, advanced-level joint training of police officers and social workers.
It diligently follows statutory guidance on interviewing child victims and witnesses in criminal proceedings, in ways that are made directly relevant to possible child abuse cases. This is high level material. Its successful delivery requires the direct co-operation of appropriately skilled and experienced police officers and social workers, working together, to deliver the training.
A wide range of activities is presented in order to achieve clear learning objectives and, although some choices of material are offered, trainers should follow the suggested programme, which is timed to run over a full 5-day week. Ideally any social worker or police officer undertaking this training would already have gone through the Joint Investigation in Child Protection training. It contains 19 presentations and 22 activities which include a wide range of materials suited to adult learning such as role plays, carousels, storytelling and quizzes.

It is recommended for use in training with: – Social workers and police officers of varied levels of experience, knowledge and prior learning, including those who are involved in the work of Local Children s Safeguarding Boards, as well as in SSAFA (who respond to the needs of children of families in the armed forces). – Several teams in each constabulary: child abuse investigation, domestic violence units, complex abuse investigation, investigation of serious sexual assault, investigation of trafficking of children and of other organised crime, schools liaison, public protection, Multi Agency Public Protection Arrangements (MAPPAS). – Social workers in Children s Services with responsibility for the protection and safeguarding of children and young people, including those who work in specialist teams such as those for disabled children, unaccompanied minors and child and adolescent mental health.
Extensively tested, this specialist, advanced-level, high-quality and material directly addresses major current gaps in training that is available to police officers and social workers. It will enable them to work together on the investigation of possible child abuse in ways that can meet concerns raised by high profile inquiries of the last two decades… but not yet addressed.
This material will help police officers and social workers to meet their performance objectives, but it also challenges and goes beyond existing government guidance in ways that can significantly improve work with both the victims and perpetrators of child abuse. This should become a must have resource that can help police officers and social workers start right away to make real progress and improvements in their work.

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Here is a link to a review of the two training manuals by Helen Brown in the British Journal of Social Work. 22nd April 2009:  39 (3) 575-578

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Russell House Publisher information