David Westlake
Biographic Data
| ID | 6024009 |
|---|---|
| NAME | David Westlake |
| GIVEN NAMES | David |
| FAMILY NAME | Westlake |
| SIGNATURE | WESTLAKE D |
| AFFILIATIONS | Cardiff University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-7507-3413 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 21 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 74 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 21 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2012 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Theory of disruption
The context in which social interventions are piloted and evaluated is critical to success, and there is room for further theoretical and empirical work. Limited knowledge exists about ‘creating the conditions’ for interventions to succeed and about dealing with disruptive changes in context. This article presents a ‘theory of disruption’, to go alongside theories of change and harm. After discussing the challenge of context, and gaps in research…
“I feel like my future is in my control”
This paper explores early experiences of young people enrolled on the basic income for care leavers in Wales pilot through self-determination theory. Forty-four young people took part in qualitative interviews in the first six months of receiving the income as part of a wider government-commissioned evaluation. Their reported experiences were analysed under the overarching aspects of self-determination theory: autonomy, competence and relatedness…
Innovative and ambitious or unrealistic and risky? Initial professional perspectives on the basic income for care leavers in Wales pilot
The Welsh Government’s Basic Income for Care Leavers in Wales pilot has been subject to public and political debate. While proponents applaud the ambitious nature of the policy and its intent to strengthen support for young people leaving care, critics have raised concern about its design and questioned its potential for positive impact. This article contributes to the debate by detailing the views and early experiences of professionals with dire…
Economic Evaluation of a School-Based Social Worker Intervention (SWIS)
Schools are a source of at-risk referrals to Children Social Care (CSC), contributing the second highest proportion of all referrals in the UK, behind the police. Since 204 schools were also associated with the highest increase in referrals.Social workers have the lead responsibility for assessing and safeguarding children. This research evaluated an intervention that integrated social workers into schools (SWIS) to support education colleagues, …
A Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial of Social Workers in Schools (SWIS) in England
Purpose: “Social Workers in Schools” (SWIS) is a school-based intervention aiming to reduce the need for children to receive child protection services in England. This article reports the findings of a randomized controlled trial (RCT) designed to evaluate SWIS. Method: The study was a two-arm pragmatic cluster RCT with an embedded process and economic evaluation. The intervention physically located social workers within schools. The primary outc…
Social workers in schools
This study evaluated the feasibility of ‘Social Workers in Schools’, an intervention that involved social workers being based within schools across three local authorities in England (SWIS). Schools make a large number of referrals to Children's Social Care and play an important role in recognizing risks to children and protecting them from harm, but it is unusual for social workers to be based in schools in the U.K. and to do statutory work. We …
Student perspectives on school-based social workers
Purpose School social work, in various forms, is well established internationally and has a growing evidence base. Yet existing research focuses on professional perspectives rather than those of students. This study aims to fill this gap by exploring secondary school student perspectives of having social workers in schools (SWIS). It was undertaken in England as part of the SWIS trial, which tested whether secondary school-based social workers co…
The cost-effectiveness and cost-consequences of a school-based social worker intervention
The SWIS trial compared a social worker assigned to schools (intervention) versus usual practice. • The mean total cost of the SWIS intervention per school was £106,771.30. • Variations in staff recruitment to SWIS teams led to differences in costs for local authorities. • Costs were re-estimated to account for staff time and quality of implementation. • The probability of SWIS being cost-effective for averting a section 47 enquiry at cost-effect…
Mechanisms for Support
International research shows that although parents perceive the child protection system to be stigmatising and authoritarian, peer parental advocacy (PPA) programmes have a positive impact on improving complex relationships between parents and professionals. PPA programmes enable parents with lived experience of child protection processes to support other parents to navigate the system. As an emerging area of policy interest, research investigati…
Peer parental advocacy
Devolved Budgets in Children’s Social Care
A lack of basic resources and financial difficulties affect many families and increase risks to children. Social workers’ ability to help is limited by scarce resources, and managers usually control the financial and material help that is available, making it difficult to access directly. This article reports on a mixed methods evaluation of ‘devolved budgets’ (DBs), an intervention where social workers could use up to £10,000 to help families di…
Independent visiting with children in care during the pandemic
This essay describes the impact of the pandemic on our experiences as Independent Visitors (IVs) forchildren who are looked-after. Independent Visitors are volunteers who visit, advise and befriend children with the aim of helping them develop a positive, long-term relationship beyond the care system. Based on our personal experiences of being matched with and visiting two young people, we consider how supporting the children remotely during the …
Direct observation in practice
Purpose This paper presents findings from a project that aimed to support social work managers to observe, evaluate and give feedback on social work practice skills. Design/methodology/approach An embedded team of researchers observed over 300 meetings between parents and social workers and gave feedback based on an established research instrument that facilitated quantitative coding of individual skills such as empathy and purposefulness. Then m…
Patterns of practice
There is relatively little research on the communication skills that social workers use in direct practice with families. This study explores patterns of practice skill found in child and family social work home visits. The study analysed 127 practice interactions in family homes, coding for seven dimensions of worker skill using a coding framework drawn from motivational interviewing. Exploratory factor analysis was employed to establish pattern…
What Is the Relationship between Worker Skills and Outcomes for Families in Child and Family Social Work
Communication skills are fundamental to social work, yet few studies have directly evaluated their impact. In this study, we explore the relationship between skills and outcomes in 127 families. An observation of practice was undertaken on the second or third meeting with a family. Practice quality was evaluated in relation to seven skills, which were grouped into three dimensions: relationship building, good authority and evocation of intrinsic …
The activity does not archive well
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to compare and contrast what is spoken about in supervision case discussions in Children’s Services with what subsequently appears in the written record on the child’s file. As an exploratory study, the authors set two research questions – how do supervision conversations and corresponding records compare? And how do social work supervisors make use of these records? Design/methodology/approach The authors sam…
A randomized controlled trial of training in Motivational Interviewing for child protection
There has been interest in developing more evidence-based approaches to child and family social work in the UK in recent years. This study examines the impact of a skills development package of training and supervision in Motivational Interviewing (MI) on the skills of social workers and the engagement of parents through a randomized controlled trial. All workers in one local authority were randomly assigned to receive the package (n = 28) or con…
Breaking Down Language Barriers
This paper explores how social workers can communicate effectively using an interpreter. It examines how child and family practitioners describe their experiences of working with interpreters and uses audio recordings of home visits to analyse how the challenges they describe manifest in practice. The analysis is based on audio recordings of nineteen interpreter-mediated meetings between workers and families, and two focus groups with practitione…
Adding Evidence to the Ethics Debate
All research requires ethical scrutiny of the harm it may cause participants, yet we know relatively little about the actual experiences of service users who participate. This paper explores the views of parents and carers (n 97) involved in an English study into outcomes for children known to Children's Services. Nearly all participants (96 per cent) who took part in two research interviews reported being glad they took part, and none expressed …
Validity of the Working Alliance Inventory Within Child Protection Services
The Working Alliance Inventory remains a widely studied measure of quality of therapeutic relationships between the practitioner and client. No prior study has examined the psychometrics and validity of the Working Alliance Inventory–Short (WAI-S) in a sample of families, social workers, and trained observers within child protection services. Surveys were completed by 130 families, social workers concerning 274 cases, and observers following 165 …
Parental resistance and social worker skills
Parental resistance is a ubiquitous feature of child and family social work, yet there has been limited research or theoretical work directed at the issue. This paper identifies social and individual reasons why parents may be resistant. Five principle causes of parental resistance are discussed, namely social structure and disadvantage, the context of child protection work, parental resistance to change, denial or minimization of abuse or neglec…
Parental resistance and social worker skills
Parental resistance is a ubiquitous feature of child and family social work, yet there has been limited research or theoretical work directed at the issue. This paper identifies social and individual reasons why parents may be resistant. Five principle causes of parental resistance are discussed, namely social structure and disadvantage, the context of child protection work, parental resistance to change, denial or minimization of abuse or neglec…
A randomized controlled trial of training in Motivational Interviewing for child protection
There has been interest in developing more evidence-based approaches to child and family social work in the UK in recent years. This study examines the impact of a skills development package of training and supervision in Motivational Interviewing (MI) on the skills of social workers and the engagement of parents through a randomized controlled trial. All workers in one local authority were randomly assigned to receive the package (n = 28) or con…
Patterns of practice
There is relatively little research on the communication skills that social workers use in direct practice with families. This study explores patterns of practice skill found in child and family social work home visits. The study analysed 127 practice interactions in family homes, coding for seven dimensions of worker skill using a coding framework drawn from motivational interviewing. Exploratory factor analysis was employed to establish pattern…
What Is the Relationship between Worker Skills and Outcomes for Families in Child and Family Social Work
Communication skills are fundamental to social work, yet few studies have directly evaluated their impact. In this study, we explore the relationship between skills and outcomes in 127 families. An observation of practice was undertaken on the second or third meeting with a family. Practice quality was evaluated in relation to seven skills, which were grouped into three dimensions: relationship building, good authority and evocation of intrinsic …
Breaking Down Language Barriers
This paper explores how social workers can communicate effectively using an interpreter. It examines how child and family practitioners describe their experiences of working with interpreters and uses audio recordings of home visits to analyse how the challenges they describe manifest in practice. The analysis is based on audio recordings of nineteen interpreter-mediated meetings between workers and families, and two focus groups with practitione…
Validity of the Working Alliance Inventory Within Child Protection Services
The Working Alliance Inventory remains a widely studied measure of quality of therapeutic relationships between the practitioner and client. No prior study has examined the psychometrics and validity of the Working Alliance Inventory–Short (WAI-S) in a sample of families, social workers, and trained observers within child protection services. Surveys were completed by 130 families, social workers concerning 274 cases, and observers following 165 …
The activity does not archive well
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to compare and contrast what is spoken about in supervision case discussions in Children’s Services with what subsequently appears in the written record on the child’s file. As an exploratory study, the authors set two research questions – how do supervision conversations and corresponding records compare? And how do social work supervisors make use of these records? Design/methodology/approach The authors sam…
Mechanisms for Support
International research shows that although parents perceive the child protection system to be stigmatising and authoritarian, peer parental advocacy (PPA) programmes have a positive impact on improving complex relationships between parents and professionals. PPA programmes enable parents with lived experience of child protection processes to support other parents to navigate the system. As an emerging area of policy interest, research investigati…
Direct observation in practice
Purpose This paper presents findings from a project that aimed to support social work managers to observe, evaluate and give feedback on social work practice skills. Design/methodology/approach An embedded team of researchers observed over 300 meetings between parents and social workers and gave feedback based on an established research instrument that facilitated quantitative coding of individual skills such as empathy and purposefulness. Then m…
Adding Evidence to the Ethics Debate
All research requires ethical scrutiny of the harm it may cause participants, yet we know relatively little about the actual experiences of service users who participate. This paper explores the views of parents and carers (n 97) involved in an English study into outcomes for children known to Children's Services. Nearly all participants (96 per cent) who took part in two research interviews reported being glad they took part, and none expressed …
Parental resistance and social worker skills
Parental resistance is a ubiquitous feature of child and family social work, yet there has been limited research or theoretical work directed at the issue. This paper identifies social and individual reasons why parents may be resistant. Five principle causes of parental resistance are discussed, namely social structure and disadvantage, the context of child protection work, parental resistance to change, denial or minimization of abuse or neglec…
Validity of the Working Alliance Inventory Within Child Protection Services
The Working Alliance Inventory remains a widely studied measure of quality of therapeutic relationships between the practitioner and client. No prior study has examined the psychometrics and validity of the Working Alliance Inventory–Short (WAI-S) in a sample of families, social workers, and trained observers within child protection services. Surveys were completed by 130 families, social workers concerning 274 cases, and observers following 165 …
Adding Evidence to the Ethics Debate
All research requires ethical scrutiny of the harm it may cause participants, yet we know relatively little about the actual experiences of service users who participate. This paper explores the views of parents and carers (n 97) involved in an English study into outcomes for children known to Children's Services. Nearly all participants (96 per cent) who took part in two research interviews reported being glad they took part, and none expressed …
The activity does not archive well
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to compare and contrast what is spoken about in supervision case discussions in Children’s Services with what subsequently appears in the written record on the child’s file. As an exploratory study, the authors set two research questions – how do supervision conversations and corresponding records compare? And how do social work supervisors make use of these records? Design/methodology/approach The authors sam…
A randomized controlled trial of training in Motivational Interviewing for child protection
There has been interest in developing more evidence-based approaches to child and family social work in the UK in recent years. This study examines the impact of a skills development package of training and supervision in Motivational Interviewing (MI) on the skills of social workers and the engagement of parents through a randomized controlled trial. All workers in one local authority were randomly assigned to receive the package (n = 28) or con…
Breaking Down Language Barriers
This paper explores how social workers can communicate effectively using an interpreter. It examines how child and family practitioners describe their experiences of working with interpreters and uses audio recordings of home visits to analyse how the challenges they describe manifest in practice. The analysis is based on audio recordings of nineteen interpreter-mediated meetings between workers and families, and two focus groups with practitione…
Patterns of practice
There is relatively little research on the communication skills that social workers use in direct practice with families. This study explores patterns of practice skill found in child and family social work home visits. The study analysed 127 practice interactions in family homes, coding for seven dimensions of worker skill using a coding framework drawn from motivational interviewing. Exploratory factor analysis was employed to establish pattern…
What Is the Relationship between Worker Skills and Outcomes for Families in Child and Family Social Work
Communication skills are fundamental to social work, yet few studies have directly evaluated their impact. In this study, we explore the relationship between skills and outcomes in 127 families. An observation of practice was undertaken on the second or third meeting with a family. Practice quality was evaluated in relation to seven skills, which were grouped into three dimensions: relationship building, good authority and evocation of intrinsic …
Direct observation in practice
Purpose This paper presents findings from a project that aimed to support social work managers to observe, evaluate and give feedback on social work practice skills. Design/methodology/approach An embedded team of researchers observed over 300 meetings between parents and social workers and gave feedback based on an established research instrument that facilitated quantitative coding of individual skills such as empathy and purposefulness. Then m…
Independent visiting with children in care during the pandemic
This essay describes the impact of the pandemic on our experiences as Independent Visitors (IVs) forchildren who are looked-after. Independent Visitors are volunteers who visit, advise and befriend children with the aim of helping them develop a positive, long-term relationship beyond the care system. Based on our personal experiences of being matched with and visiting two young people, we consider how supporting the children remotely during the …
Devolved Budgets in Children’s Social Care
A lack of basic resources and financial difficulties affect many families and increase risks to children. Social workers’ ability to help is limited by scarce resources, and managers usually control the financial and material help that is available, making it difficult to access directly. This article reports on a mixed methods evaluation of ‘devolved budgets’ (DBs), an intervention where social workers could use up to £10,000 to help families di…
Peer parental advocacy
Social workers in schools
This study evaluated the feasibility of ‘Social Workers in Schools’, an intervention that involved social workers being based within schools across three local authorities in England (SWIS). Schools make a large number of referrals to Children's Social Care and play an important role in recognizing risks to children and protecting them from harm, but it is unusual for social workers to be based in schools in the U.K. and to do statutory work. We …
Student perspectives on school-based social workers
Purpose School social work, in various forms, is well established internationally and has a growing evidence base. Yet existing research focuses on professional perspectives rather than those of students. This study aims to fill this gap by exploring secondary school student perspectives of having social workers in schools (SWIS). It was undertaken in England as part of the SWIS trial, which tested whether secondary school-based social workers co…
The cost-effectiveness and cost-consequences of a school-based social worker intervention
The SWIS trial compared a social worker assigned to schools (intervention) versus usual practice. • The mean total cost of the SWIS intervention per school was £106,771.30. • Variations in staff recruitment to SWIS teams led to differences in costs for local authorities. • Costs were re-estimated to account for staff time and quality of implementation. • The probability of SWIS being cost-effective for averting a section 47 enquiry at cost-effect…
Mechanisms for Support
International research shows that although parents perceive the child protection system to be stigmatising and authoritarian, peer parental advocacy (PPA) programmes have a positive impact on improving complex relationships between parents and professionals. PPA programmes enable parents with lived experience of child protection processes to support other parents to navigate the system. As an emerging area of policy interest, research investigati…
Economic Evaluation of a School-Based Social Worker Intervention (SWIS)
Schools are a source of at-risk referrals to Children Social Care (CSC), contributing the second highest proportion of all referrals in the UK, behind the police. Since 204 schools were also associated with the highest increase in referrals.Social workers have the lead responsibility for assessing and safeguarding children. This research evaluated an intervention that integrated social workers into schools (SWIS) to support education colleagues, …
A Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial of Social Workers in Schools (SWIS) in England
Purpose: “Social Workers in Schools” (SWIS) is a school-based intervention aiming to reduce the need for children to receive child protection services in England. This article reports the findings of a randomized controlled trial (RCT) designed to evaluate SWIS. Method: The study was a two-arm pragmatic cluster RCT with an embedded process and economic evaluation. The intervention physically located social workers within schools. The primary outc…
Theory of disruption
The context in which social interventions are piloted and evaluated is critical to success, and there is room for further theoretical and empirical work. Limited knowledge exists about ‘creating the conditions’ for interventions to succeed and about dealing with disruptive changes in context. This article presents a ‘theory of disruption’, to go alongside theories of change and harm. After discussing the challenge of context, and gaps in research…
“I feel like my future is in my control”
This paper explores early experiences of young people enrolled on the basic income for care leavers in Wales pilot through self-determination theory. Forty-four young people took part in qualitative interviews in the first six months of receiving the income as part of a wider government-commissioned evaluation. Their reported experiences were analysed under the overarching aspects of self-determination theory: autonomy, competence and relatedness…
Innovative and ambitious or unrealistic and risky? Initial professional perspectives on the basic income for care leavers in Wales pilot
The Welsh Government’s Basic Income for Care Leavers in Wales pilot has been subject to public and political debate. While proponents applaud the ambitious nature of the policy and its intent to strengthen support for young people leaving care, critics have raised concern about its design and questioned its potential for positive impact. This article contributes to the debate by detailing the views and early experiences of professionals with dire…
Psychology (17 works) · Social Work Education and Practice (14 works) · Medicine (11 works) · Political science (11 works) · Social Work (10 works) · Nursing (8 works) · Sociology (8 works) · Public relations (6 works) · Social Psychology (6 works) · Child Abuse and Trauma (5 works)