Most social workers consider supporting the friendships of children in care to be a 'key' part of their role, amid concerns that services do not sufficiently prioritise these relationships, a poll has found.
In a recent article for Community Care, trainers Lowis Charfe and Gabriel Eichsteller argued that helping children maintain and develop friendships should be viewed as a core part of social work practice.
They cited a 2020 Coram Voice report, ‘What Makes Life Good?’, which found that care leavers most often identified friends as their main source of emotional support, linking them to better wellbeing, reduced loneliness and stress, greater body confidence, and a more positive outlook on the future.
Barriers to practitioners supporting children's friendships
However, drawing on focus groups involving 15 professionals working with care-experienced young people, Charfe and Eichsteller highlighted systemic barriers to practitioners supporting friendships, including restrictive rules, workload pressures and risk-averse attitudes among practitioners.
While councils are under a legal duty, under section 34 of the Children Act 1989, to allow children contact with their parents, no such legal responsibility exists in relation to their friends.
Despite this, a recent Community Care poll, which received around 750 votes, found most practitioners (58%) saw supporting children’s friendships as a “key part” of their role, while a further 18% described it as moderately important.
Only 26% said they either did not see it as their responsibility (19%) or considered it to be a minor part of their role (7%).
How do you help foster the friendships of the children you support?
Celebrate those who've inspired you
Do you have a colleague, mentor, or social work figure you can't help but gush about?
Our My Brilliant Colleague series invites you to celebrate anyone within social work who has inspired you – whether current or former colleagues, managers, students, lecturers, mentors or prominent past or present sector figures whom you have admired from afar.
Nominate your colleague or social work inspiration by filling in our nominations form with a few paragraphs (100-250 words) explaining how and why the person has inspired you.
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