In 2010-11, I led a project from Cardiff University, with funding from the Welsh National Institute for Social Care and Health Research, to develop and pilot an evidence-based training course for social workers. The two-day course combined boosting knowledge and raising awareness with developing engagement skills through motivational interviewing. We tested trainees’ confidence levels before the course and two months later. We also asked them about men on their caseloads and how many they were engaging in discussion of parenting. What we found was quite promising. Two months on, there was a gain in practitioner confidence at statistically significant levels for every one of the 17 statements we gave the social workers about different aspects of work with fathers. Confidence is one thing, but actual change in practice is more important of course. On the basis of what social workers told us, there was a statistically significant increase in the rate of engagement of both non-risky men living with children and non-residential fathers. The rate of engagement of non-residential fathers almost doubled. There was, however, no change in the rate of engagement of men who are putting children at risk. This is no doubt the most challenging area of practice. The biggest rise in confidence, however, was for working with risk.
Asking questions of one group of workers before training and a few months later is not the strongest evidence. Ideally you would have a comparison group to provide more proof that it was the training that had the positive effect. But these results are promising. Motivational interviewing has a great deal of potential for child protection, as it has been found to be very effective with reluctant clients in other fields (e.g. substance misuse). An article presenting the results of the training evaluation has just been published in Children and Youth Services Review and for those who don’t have access to that journal, the research report can be found here if you follow the link.