September 2007 Archives

I just want to pass on a huge thank you on behalf of the CCInform team to everyone who has piloted Inform and given us your feedback.

The editorial team have been extremely busy commissioning work suggested from feedback sessions over the past months.

You may have seen our new series of articles called “guides to…” These articles are intended to provide practical guidance for social care professionals around a wide range of subjects and can be found in the practice section of the website. So far, we have published guides to: attachment disorder; foetal alcohol syndrome and shaken baby syndrome.

We are now looking into commissioning guides to street drugs; Webster-Stratton and Solihull approach to parenting; Othello syndrome; the impact of cannabis smoking on pregnant mothers and their children; the complaints procedure against children and families social workers; the impact of divorce and separation on children; self-harm; non-compliance issues for social workers working with children in hospital; conduct disorder and many many more.

For the CAFCASS pilot, we have commissioned guides to: conflict resolution; mediation and family group conferencing.

With the local authority pilots coming to a close, can I just take this opportunity to welcome the Eastern region of the Child Abuse Investigation Command of the Met Police who have agreed to pilot Inform. Please send us your feedback through the contact us page with any suggestions you have for content and we’ll be more than happy to consider commissioning this work.

Congratulations to Donna Phillips from Sutton Council on winning the Red letter day gift experience.

Inform’s publishing director, Trevor Parker, picked Donna’s name at random out of a possible 60 names. Donna was thrilled to receive the prize but with too many experiences to choose from, can’t quite decide what to go for. Donna, keep us posted!

We have now been to a few feedback sessions with piloters across the 8 local authorities, which is really fantastic. You are all very positive about Inform and can see its potential.

Some piloters have raised the point that you do not have time to logon to inform, but those who do, once they are on the site find it extremely useful. With the pilot phase nearing the end, we really do urge you to practice using Inform as your first point of call when searching the internet for information. Eventually, Inform will be a one-stop-shop for all your information needs.

Good news, we have published 30 more case law summaries on the site.
It has been brought to our attention that you would like to see a summary of the case in the search-results page before you click through to the specific case law. We think this is a really valuable comment and will be working with our development team in the near future to see if we can implement this.

The team have been really busy loading lots more practice articles covering all areas in social care, along with another reference manual on care planning and reviews for looked after children and a research review entitled “Therapy with children after sexual abuse, and the impact on non-offending parents and siblings”.

Remember, there are only a couple more weeks left of the pilot phase. If you can spare some time, to send back any more comments, as ever, we will be truly grateful.

Many thanks!