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February 2014 Strengths-Based Practice in Child Protection Carolyn Oliver and Grant Charles School of Social Work, University of British Columbia
February 2014
Strengths-Based Practice in
Child Protection Carolyn Oliver and Grant Charles
School of Social Work, University of British Columbia
2
Executive Summary
Since 2008 all frontline child protection workers within British Columbia's Ministry for Children
and Family Development have been required to use a strengths-based approach with their
clients. Strengths-based practice (SBP) has been promoted as a preferred approach for child
protection work throughout North America, Australia and Europe. There are early indications
that this way of working is effective and that clients value being treated in a strengths-based
way. However, workers have been accused of paying lip-service to the approach and struggling
to incorporate strengths-based values and practices into their daily work and professional
identity. In this study all fully delegated child protection workers employed directly by the
British Columbia Ministry for Children and Family Development were invited to share their
views on what is needed to make SBP work in the child protection field.
Two hundred and twenty five workers participated by way of an online survey and/or in-
depth interviews. The good news for the Ministry for Children and Family Development is that
there was a high level of support for SBP and every respondent reported knowing about and
using the approach. Some child protection workers appeared to have fully integrated it into
their daily practice. Their descriptions of compassionate safety-oriented strengths-based
practice went far beyond paying lip-service to the approach.
The majority of workers, however, did not appear to use SBP to this extent. The
approach was frequently perceived to have limited applicability in child protection settings.
Many workers maintained that SBP could not be done when they had to act contrary to client
wishes. They had clear rules about the clients and situations for which it was not appropriate.
The common characterisation of SBP as an all-encompassing and purely supportive approach
made it extremely difficult for workers both to effectively manage risk within a strengths-based
approach and to switch smoothly between SBP and more directive approaches. This left them
feeling unable to fulfil their mandate using SBP or to sustain relationships with clients on which
they and their clients could depend.
These problems appear related to child protection workers attempting to implement
versions of SBP that have not been adapted specifically for child protection work. Five distinct
3
versions of SBP emerged from interviewee accounts. Only one of these versions was congruent
with the full range of child protection functions and enabled workers to maintain a
collaborative stance and identity as a strengths-based practitioner while exercising the
mandated authority that is sometimes necessary to protect children. This version was highly
congruent with common adaptations of SBP for child protection work like the Signs of Safety®
approach [1, 2]. However it extended these adaptations by providing for the first time a model
for managing the relational aspects of SBP in child protection work.
It is recommended that the Ministry promote an understanding of SBP that has been
specifically adapted to child protection work and is supported by the 'Enacting Firm, Fair and
Friendly Practice' relational model described in this study. All training and policy should be
aligned to this definition of the approach. This would address the widespread confusion as to
the meaning of SBP which is currently undermining implementation and preventing workers
from learning to manage the complexities of the approach. Other recommendations include
implementing Strengths-Based Management, increasing the time available to workers to
negotiate effective strengths-based relationships and providing sufficient resources to ensure
client-led safety plans are safe. Such changes increase the likelihood that workers will use SBP,
and that attempts to strengthen individual capacity through education might be effective. The
study suggests taking a developmental approach to training, providing ongoing opportunities
for reflection, education and practice of SBP in increasingly complex situations. A greater focus
on the skills of emotional self-regulation, comfort with authority and fearlessness, from
undergraduate education into advanced practice, is also likely to support implementation of
the approach.
With these actions to build individual and organisational capacity for SBP, there is
considerable cause for hope that more workers can make strengths-based relationships that
meet the needs of both the parents and the children serviced by child protection workers. This
will make it easier for frontline workers to move from doing strengths-based practice on
occasion to seeing strengths-based practice as a core component of their professional identity.
4
Table of Contents
Executive Summary ......................................................................................................................... 2
1. Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 6
What is Strengths-Based Practice? ............................................................................................. 6
What is Strengths-Based Practice in Child Protection? .............................................................. 7
Why the Need for Research? ...................................................................................................... 8
2. Research Questions .................................................................................................................... 9
3. Methodology ............................................................................................................................... 9
Recruitment ................................................................................................................................. 9
Data Collection ............................................................................................................................ 9
Data Analysis ............................................................................................................................. 10
4. Research Participants ................................................................................................................ 10
5. Findings ..................................................................................................................................... 12
Knowledge and Use of SBP ........................................................................................................ 12
Support for SBP ......................................................................................................................... 13
Applicability of SBP .................................................................................................................... 13
Different Definitions of SBP ...................................................................................................... 16
1) Relating Therapeutically ..................................................................................................... 17
2) Supporting Client Self-Determination ................................................................................ 18
3) Connecting to Internal and External Resources ................................................................. 19
4) Pursuing a Balanced Understanding .................................................................................. 20
5) Enacting Firm, Fair and Friendly Practice ........................................................................... 22
a) Being Transparent .......................................................................................................... 23
b) Using Authority Purposefully ......................................................................................... 24
c) Inviting Maximum Collaboration in the Process ............................................................ 25
d) Seeing Clients as Human ................................................................................................ 26
e) Attending to the Interaction .......................................................................................... 27
f) Judging Impartially .......................................................................................................... 27
g) Using Strengths .............................................................................................................. 28
5
Becoming a Strengths-Based Child Protection Practitioner ..................................................... 29
The Importance of Defining SBP to Include the Use of Mandated Authority .......................... 31
Fear and Fearlessness ............................................................................................................... 33
Supports Needed to Become a Strengths-Based Practitioner .................................................. 37
1) Time .................................................................................................................................... 39
2) Resources ........................................................................................................................... 39
3) Strengths-Based Management .......................................................................................... 40
4) One Definition of SBP ......................................................................................................... 41
5) SBP Education ..................................................................................................................... 42
6) Emotional Self-Regulation Skills ......................................................................................... 44
7) Comfort With Power .......................................................................................................... 45
6. Limitations ................................................................................................................................. 46
7. Further Research ....................................................................................................................... 47
8. Recommendations .................................................................................................................... 48
9. Conclusion ................................................................................................................................. 49
6
1. Introduction
In October 2012 a study began in collaboration with the Ministry for Children and Family
Development to explore how frontline child protection practitioners applied the ideas of
strengths-based practice (SBP). All fully delegated workers doing frontline child protection work
were invited to give their views. They shared their experiences via an online survey and in-
depth interviews. This report summarises the study and makes recommendations for action to
better support workers to do strengths-based child protection practice.
What is Strengths-Based Practice?
Strengths-based practice (SBP) is a way of working with clients that relies on systematically
identifying their perspectives, goals, strengths and solutions and ensuring that all interventions
are based on these. It is rooted in the idea that with the right supports all clients have the
capacity to make the changes that will help resolve their problems. Clients are seen as the
experts of their own lives; they know best the details of their situation and what will work for
them and their family. Through a collaborative relationship focussed on future goals rather than
the details of past problems, client and worker together construct solutions and the motivation
to achieve them.
Beyond these core characteristics, SBP has been described in a variety of ways. The
original version was developed in Kansas in the late 1980's as a social work case management
approach for clients of mental health services. It framed workers as "'travelling companions' to
persons in need" [3]; their job was to accompany clients on their journey to connect to informal
resources in the community. In contrast, the strengths-based approach of solution-focussed
therapy [4] is a therapeutic approach using techniques like exceptions and scaling questions to
keep the work focussed on client strengths and solutions. SBP has also been portrayed as a
value stance or an orientation to focus on client capacity and what is going well in contrast to
the tendency for helping professionals to emphasise client problems [5, 6].
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What is Strengths-Based Practice in Child Protection?
Strengths-based practice, mainly from the solution-focussed tradition, was introduced to child
protection work over a decade ago by figures like Insoo Kim Berg [7] and Andrew Turnell and
Steve Edwards [1].They adapted SBP to focus on the goal of child safety. It was assumed that
worker and client would share this goal or at the very least could pursue the common goal to
make child protection services unnecessary. As far as possible the work was driven by the
solutions and resources of clients and their extended network. The worker was expected to be
clear about child protection concerns, to assess risk and to use statutory authority when
necessary. She used structured communication and therapeutic techniques like solution-
focussed questions to help clients expand their understanding of their situation and access the
widest possible array of internal and external resources. This required that the worker
continually shift between conveying empathy and expectations. The worker-client relationship
was "the principle vehicle for change" [1] and was characterised by authenticity,
encouragement, persistence and good humour.
The most commonly used model of strengths-based solution-focused child protection
practice is currently the Signs of Safety approach [1, 2]. This has informed much of the work to
introduce SBP to the Ministry for Children and Family Development (MCFD) and has been
implemented in 50 to 100 jurisdictions across Australasia, North America and Europe [2, 8]. In
2012, 11 states in the United States used the Signs of Safety approach, three as their sole model
for practice and eight in conjunction with the Structured Decision-Making risk assessment
model [9]. Some jurisdictions had developed hybrid practice models, like California's 'Safety-
Organized Practice', drawing on the ideas of Signs of Safety but no longer using the Signs of
Safety name [9]. Implementation of the Signs of Safety has been most comprehensively
documented in Minnesota, where it was first introduced in Olmstead County in 1999 and
became part of statewide training in 2009 [10, 11].
A second model of SBP developed for and implemented in statutory child protection
agencies is Solution-Based Casework [12-15]. Also known as 'Family Solutions', it is based on
solution-focused therapy, family life cycle theory and relapse prevention theory. It was
8
developed with frontline child protection workers in Kentucky and has since been implemented
in that state, Washington State and some parts of Florida, New Hampshire and Tennessee [14].
Why the Need for Research?
While SBP has now been introduced to many social service education and practice agencies,
there have been few attempts to interrogate theoretical adherence to strengths-based models
[6, 16, 17]. There is a concern that strengths-based principles and practices are inconsistently
adopted and that workers are paying lip-service to the approach but failing to incorporate it
into their work [10, 17-21]. This is concerning in light of early evidence that child protection
clients [22] and workers [23] like the approach and that it may have a positive effect on
outcomes [11-13, 23, 24].
While a substantial number of articles have been written describing child protection
workers using the approach to good effect, it is very hard to tell how typical these workers are.
Much of the writing is by workplace leaders or 'Signs of Safety consultants' who might be seen
to have a vested interest in the promotion of SBP [25-29]. Other writing is based on small-scale
descriptive studies [8, 22], aligned with Appreciative Inquiry principles to focus on what works
[28, 30] or conducted with relatively small samples of the frontline practitioner population [12,
23]. This distorts a clear picture of the approach's implementation and limits discussion of what
is needed to adapt the approach to better fit the needs of child protection workers and their
clients.
MCFD was one of the earliest adopters of strengths-based child protection anywhere in
the world, having introduced the approach in 2003 as part of its Family Development Response.
By 2008 it was expected that workers on all child protection teams would implement the
approach. The organisation has made a considerable investment in SBP training over the last
decade and has had time to embed SBP into its policies and expose workers to its ideas. This
increases the chances that a study into whether and how child protection practitioners apply
SBP ideas in MCFD might provide useful information about the fit of the approach to
contemporary child protection settings and the supports necessary to make it work.
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2. Research Questions
The questions this study set out to answer were:
1. Do child protection workers apply the ideas of strengths-based solution-focused practice,
and if so, how?
2. What do they perceive as helping and hindering them in this process?
3. Methodology
Recruitment
The population of interest for this study was fully delegated practitioners employed directly by
the Ministry for Children and Family Development (MCFD) and working at the time of the study
in a frontline child protection position. Eight hundred and twenty four workers met these
criteria. While it was originally hoped that workers from the delegated Aboriginal agencies
would also participate in the research, this was not possible to achieve within the timeframes of
the study.
Following meetings with senior MCFD staff, the study was promoted through the
intranet and an email of support sent from the provincial Director of Child Welfare to all fully
delegated workers. Workers were then recruited via three emails sent from the principal
researcher to the study population over the course of one month. Interviewees volunteered in
response to the emails or by providing their contact information at the end of the online
survey.
Data Collection
This was a pragmatic mixed methods study. The first data collection method was a confidential
online survey. The survey was hosted on a website external to MCFD and accessed via a
weblink contained in the recruitment emails. It was designed to take 10 minutes to complete. It
10
contained a mixture of demographic questions, open-ended questions eliciting workers'
definitions of SBP and perceptions of its supports and challenges, and Likert-type response
questions regarding self-perceived knowledge, use and attitudes towards SBP.
The second data collection method was semi-structured interviews with practitioners.
These interviews took place face-to-face and by telephone. They lasted an average of 74
minutes each. Two participants were interviewed twice.
Data Analysis
The qualitative data was analysed using an interpretive description approach using inductive
coding and constant comparative analysis [31]. Some was converted to quantitative data. The
quantitative data was analysed using a variety of descriptive and inferential statistical tests
including chi-square tests, Pearson's correlation, t-tests, one-way Analysis of Variance, and
their non-parametric equivalents.
4. Research Participants
Two hundred and twenty four people completed the online survey, representing 27% of the
total population of 824 fully delegated frontline child protection workers in MCFD at the time.
This means that in the absence of non-sampling error, results could be said to represent the
population with a margin of error of 5.59%, 95% of the time. Survey participants came from all
the team types identified in the study. There was no difference in worker age, years of
experience with SBP or years of experience as a delegated child protection worker across these
different team types.
Sixty-nine workers volunteered to be interviewed. Twenty-four interviewees were
chosen to represent all team types and as wide a spread as possible of ages, years of
experience with SBP and different attitudes as to whether SBP was hard or easy.
11
The demographic characteristics of the survey sample are outlined in Figure 1.
Figure 1 Characteristics of Survey Participants
1 Mean age of sample is consistent with mean age of all MCFD frontline child protection workers
2 For the purposes of this analysis an 'Integrated' team is defined as any team which includes frontline child
protection workers and carries out more than one of the following functions: intake, family service, family 2 For the purposes of this analysis an 'Integrated' team is defined as any team which includes frontline child
protection workers and carries out more than one of the following functions: intake, family service, family development response, guardianship/adoption planning functions OR includes workers from another field of practice like child and youth mental health and youth probation
n = 224 Range Mean Mode
Age 1 23-65 41.9 35
Years doing strengths-based practice
0-40 8.28 10
Years as a fully delegated child protection worker
0-32 8.41 5
Team Intake Family Service
Family Development
Response Integrated 2 Other
Percentage of n 21 27 5 45 2
Qualification Bachelor of Social Work
Master of Social Work
Bachelor of Child and
Youth Care Other
Percentage of n 68 8 18 5
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5. Findings
Knowledge and Use of SBP
Every worker said they knew something about SBP and used it at least occasionally (see Figure
2). Workers tended to rate their level of knowledge and frequency of SBP use highly, and this
did not differ with team type, qualification or age. This suggests that SBP has come to be
perceived as a generic social work approach rather than the preserve of a few specialist
workers in FDR teams or of newly trained workers bringing innovative ideas into the workplace.
This may be partly due to MCFD efforts to promote SBP as the preferred protection response.
Figure 2 Survey Responses: Knowledge and Use of SBP
Participants were asked how frequently they had used the strengths-based techniques
of the miracle question, exceptions question, scaling question and coping question in their
previous 10 conversations with adult clients. Eighty-eight percent said they had used a coping
question, 80% a scaling question, 74% the miracle question and 74% an exceptions question.
Exceptions questions were least familiar, with 10% of respondents saying they did not know
what these were. Experience with SBP and level of qualification made no difference to the rate
that these techniques were used. There were some small differences across groups: older
workers and those with longer experience in child protection were less likely to use exceptions
questions and Intake workers were more likely to use the miracle question.
13
Support for SBP
There was a high degree of support for SBP. Eighty-nine percent of respondents thought it was
a good approach for child protection work and 85% that it increased the chances of success
with clients. Only nine percent of respondents felt SBP increased the risk to children. These
latter respondents were more likely to be on Family Service teams than Family Development
Response teams. One explanation for this is that Family Service workers are more likely to be
faced with the ongoing management of high risk situations that many people found challenging
within a strengths-based approach.
There were significant correlations between positive attitudes towards SBP, frequency
of SBP use, knowledge of SBP and years of experience doing SBP. This suggests a series of
reciprocal relationships whereby the more that people feel they know about SBP, the more
they use it, the more positive they feel about it and the more this leads to increased knowledge
and use. The high rate of support for the approach suggests that SBP has come to be seen as a
relatively uncontroversial and popular element of child protection practice. In light of this, it
makes sense to see any problems with its implementation as caused not by a general lack of
buy-in to the approach, but rather by specific issues in applying the ideas in practice.
Applicability of SBP
Despite the high level of support, 70% of those who could be coded on the issue identified
clients or situations for which SBP was inapplicable. There was general consensus that it was
easy to do SBP with clients who were at least somewhat willing, cooperative and resourceful.
When clients did not present this way, SBP was felt by many to be challenging, impossible or
inappropriate.
When responses to all questions pertaining to the applicability of SBP were analysed
together, it became clear that the perception that SBP was always applicable did not differ with
team type or qualification, but did increase with experience using the approach. There was
evidence of a normal developmental process in which learners will tend to use a new approach
14
in relatively limited situations at first, but will generalise it to a wider range of situations as they
become more competent and confident [32]. With experience, and the emotional engagement
in the task that enables the developing worker to reflect, strengthen successful responses and
inhibit unsuccessful ones, workers will develop increasingly complex cognitive maps of models
about how to enact SBP in different situations and these will enable them to apply it more
flexibly. However, this learning process only explains some of the difference in the perception
of SBP's applicability. It appears that the reason many people were not doing SBP was not
because they could not, but because they believed they should not.
Forty four percent of survey respondents were explicit that SBP was not the right
approach for all clients and 40% that it was not appropriate in all situations. Many had clear
rules about when they should not use the approach (see Figure 3). Some respondents
suggested that SBP was not appropriate for a broad cross-section of typical child protection
clients, for instance one worker cited "child protection cases" (260, FS3) and another, "mentally
ill clients, clients where severe physical or sexual abuse has occurred, domestic violence. Severe
substance using clients" (90, INT). In most cases workers specified that SBP was inappropriate
for entire client populations, for instance people with mental illness or addictions. Sometimes
they qualified their responses with words like 'some' and 'sometimes' to suggest that SBP was
inappropriate only for certain people within these categories.
A more detailed analysis showed that those who rated SBP as more appropriate and
more possible tended to be more experienced with SBP, to feel more knowledgeable about it
and to use it more frequently. In contrast to the commonly expressed belief that older workers
were hostile to SBP, years as a child protection worker was not related to attitudes about SBP
and both support for the approach and the perception that it was always possible increased
with age. Intake workers were less likely than Family Development Response workers to see
SBP as appropriate for all clients and less likely than Integrated team workers to see it as
appropriate in all situations. These relatively small differences between team types probably
reflect the fact that Intake workers tend to enter a client's life at a time of crisis when the
3 All quotations are identified by participant code and team type, with ITK = Intake, FS = Family Service, FDR =
Family Development Response, INT = Integrated and OTH = Other
15
child's immediate safety is a primary concern and client issues like substance and mental illness
are at their most acute. They often need to take immediate action to secure the child's safety
and do so without having had the chance to develop a meaningful relationship over time with
clients who may feel hostile or anxious. These are the situations in which many workers said the
ideas of SBP did not apply.
When SBP Is Not Appropriate Percentage of n
(n = 102)
With clients who are not willing to work collaboratively 30
When the worker must act to secure the child's immediate safety 26
With (some) clients with substance use issues 25
With (some) clients with mental illness 21
With clients who are hostile or aggressive 18
With clients who deny concerns 14
With (some) clients who sexually abuse 12
When the abuse was particularly severe 10
With (some) clients with a long history of child welfare involvement 7
With clients with limited cognitive capacity 5
In some situations of family violence 4
With clients who are sociopathic or psychopathic 4
With clients who deliberately harm their child 2
With clients who are involved in criminal activity 2
Unique examples included situations in which the worker had already made a relationship with the client, investigation cases, child protection cases, when there was court involvement, when the worker was on the witness stand, with clients of differing cultural backgrounds, in cases involving homelessness or prostitution, and with parents who did not care for the welfare of their children
Figure 3 Survey Responses: When SBP is not Appropriate
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Different Definitions of SBP
One reason for the different rules about SBP's applicability was that workers held very different
definitions of the approach. Five distinct definitions of SBP were identifiable in interviewee's
descriptions (see Figure 4). All were rooted in the strengths-based literature and can be seen as
valid expressions of SBP. However, only one definition fully incorporated the worker's use of
mandated authority and was applicable to all child protection clients and situations. In any
context in which there are limited resources, complex client needs and an imperative to
privilege the needs of the child, workers will at times need to go against the wishes of all but
the most collaborative and well-resourced clients. Four of the five definitions of SBP described
in this study did not enable them to do this. For workers holding these definitions this meant
that there were times when good child protection practice required that they not apply the
ideas of SBP in order to keep children safe.
Figure 4 Different Definitions of SBP
17
The lack of a common definition of SBP was perceived to be a significant problem. It
prevented workers from addressing complexities in the application of the approach and,
especially when workers and supervisors understood SBP differently, appeared to frustrate
effective client-centred plans.
The five different definitions of SBP held by interviewees are described in the following
section:
1) Relating Therapeutically
This version of SBP was "all about the relationship" (266, FS)
between worker and client. Identifying and complimenting
client strengths was the foundation of that relationship.
Acknowledging strengths helped to 'open up' the client to
new perspectives, including to recognising concerns about
their parenting. It connected clients to their innate
resilience and motivation and enabled them to access
insights and resources of which they otherwise might be
unaware. These internal changes in the client drove broader
system change and enabled child protection risks to be
addressed. The empathetic worker-client connection
enabled the worker to gain a deeper and more
comprehensive view of the challenges and potential solutions. This was important because in
this version of SBP the social worker had primary responsibility for gently guiding the client
towards safer parenting.
The difficulty with this definition of SBP was that it required clients to engage in a
collaborative relationship, and not all clients were able to do this. All workers with this
definition also described becoming trapped in a supportive stance. Despite being clear about
the child protection concerns and their role, their focus on talking up client strengths and the
supportive collaborative nature of the worker-client relationship could feel deceptive, make it
I’m hearing things like ‘well
no one’s ever described it like
that before’, sometimes
they’re, well a lot of times
there’s tears and I don’t base
my practice on making
people cry but sometimes it’s
that light bulb moment
where they’re going ‘Ok I am
capable despite my dad, my
mum, my great uncle, my
whoever said that I was a
loser and they get that and
start to grasp that they can
parent. (73, INT)
18
easy to gloss over risks and militate against real change. The need at times to take action
against the wishes of the parent, or to respond to the wishes of supervisors and the needs of
the child, led to sudden confusing shifts in the worker-client relationship and could sabotage it
altogether.
2) Supporting Client Self-Determination
This version of SBP meant supporting clients to be as self-determining as possible in plans to
keep their children safe. Once the worker had clearly identified the child protection concerns,
she supported clients to give their perspective, make choices about next steps, create plans and
connect to services to mitigate the concerns. Workers sought to form collaborative alliances in
which clients participated in setting goals and the strategies to meet them. The idea of minimal
intrusion was important, which meant keeping decisions
within the remit of the family and going as far as possible to
keep children out of care. The key questions for clients
were "what do you need to resolve this issue and how can I
help you with that?"
Respect and an attitude of support and
empowerment were the fundamental building blocks of this
strengths-based relationship. SBP meant listening to the
client and their network, being non-judgmental and, to the
greatest extent possible, supporting their plans and perspectives. This was achieved by eliciting
and using information about client strengths, often with the help of techniques like exceptions
and scaling questions, collaborative planning meetings and Strengths and Needs Assessments.
Identifying and acknowledging strengths had two purposes. One was to support the
development of a positive worker-client relationship. The second was to use client resources in
safety plans.
Listening to all family members and trying to fill gaps between client capacity and the
goal of child safety within the family was described by workers with this definition of SBP as
We "try as often as we can
to not drive the bus...just
kind of sit alongside the
client, provide some
direction, but the ideal
situation is if they’re the
ones who are kind of in
control" (72, INT)
19
exhausting. They struggled to reconcile their support for client self-determination with
effectively discussing and managing risk. Clients needed to actively collaborate in the process
and to be able to exercise a relatively high degree of self-determination for this version of SBP
to be successful. Without this, workers described being left "out on a limb" (187,INT) as they
felt obliged to support family plans without the resources or organisational support to
adequately manage risk.
This problem has been identified in other jurisdictions where the language of client self-
determination has become linked to organisational agendas of efficiency and retrenchment.
The under-resourcing of client-led safety plans means the structural roots of child safety issues
can be ignored [18, 33-35] as clients are left to "responsibilise themselves" [18]. It can lead
workers to adopt an uncompromising and unsafe stance about the need for children to be with
their families [36]. The focus on minimising agency intervention fails to take into account
findings that some children describe their time in care as necessary and welcome [37] and that
some families value ongoing social work intervention [30, 38].
3) Connecting to Internal and External Resources
The third definition of SBP involved a set of practices to engage clients in a trusting therapeutic
relationship and also in a safety plan that mobilised the client's external network. This
definition was characterised by its dual focus on client and community and combined ideas
from the 'Relating Therapeutically' and 'Supporting Client Self-Determination' definitions.
Workers took on a significant individual therapeutic role, listening and identifying client
strengths or "pumping their tires" (216, INT) to elicit internal change, enabling clients to open
up to new perspectives and develop new skills. Listening also enabled workers to understand
and support the client's solutions. They worked with the extended family and wider
community, often using collaborative planning processes, with the goal that they assume
primary responsibility for child safety.
20
The worker-client relationship was built
over time through the worker's reliable and
supportive presence. This version of SBP
required a great deal of "facetime" (999, INT),
listening to clients and their extended networks
and accompanying them to community events,
appointments and resources. All workers in this
group said they aimed for a relationship of
mutual trust in which the client could be honest
and turn to them for support. They described
trust being built by being clear with clients about
the child protection concerns and the process,
including the likely consequences of client
actions. In return they wanted the client to
honestly disclose their challenges and feelings about possible solutions.
The primary problem with this version of SBP was the time and emotional self-
management required to fulfil so many roles with the family. The high level of emotional
investment in the relationship created difficulties when workers had to act against the client's
wishes or when clients were perceived to be unresponsive or challenging. As one said of a
paedophile, "how do you find the positives of that person's nature when you just want to slit
their throat?" (216, INT). Workers with this definition also felt SBP was undermined by
insufficient resources and inadequate management support and stressed the need for client
buy-in if SBP was to be successful.
4) Pursuing a Balanced Understanding
This version of SBP was a set of beliefs about clients, a way of thinking, rather than simply a
practice. It was the attitude that all clients had both strengths and challenges and that worker
action should be founded on the balanced exploration and deep empathetic understanding of
Ultimately what I want to have with
my clients is a client that, even
though they think they might get in
trouble, they’re still going to call me.
Like even though they might get in
trouble for what they have to tell
me, do you know what I mean? That
they’re still going to be calling me
and saying: hey, you know, this is
what happened . . . where if you
need something you call me and we
talk about it and we get you what
you need and then, you know,
hopefully, eventually, in the end you
won’t need to call me anymore.
(243, FS)
21
both. It involved a more mindful, systematic and persistent approach than that prompted by
the standard requirement of all social workers to be open, nonjudgmental and empathetic. SBP
required them to continually understand client
behaviour in the broader context of their
strengths, environment and experiences over
time. The strengths-based worker was always
seeking the bigger picture with the goal being a
broad, balanced and fair understanding that
attended to both risks and strengths.
The worker-client relationship was founded
on curiosity, which was grounded in the belief that
there was always another way of seeing things and
always strengths to be uncovered. Workers
holding the previously discussed definitions focussed on strengths as a way to offset risks that
were largely taken for granted. However workers with a 'Supporting a Balanced Understanding'
definition of SBP saw their whole perspective, including their belief that risks may be present,
as needing to be interrogated. They spoke from the perspective that it was easy to focus on
risks in child protection work and that balance required a concerted commitment to identify,
acknowledge and build on strengths.
Workers described a variety of ways to achieve their ongoing quest for a balanced
understanding. One person drew on the ideas of the 'Supporting Client Self-Determination'
group, one of the 'Relating Therapeutically' group, and two of the 'Connecting to Internal and
External Resources' group. However for all with this definition of SBP, neither the strategies of
SBP nor their function in eliciting client change, supporting client self-determination or building
a plan figured heavily in their description of the approach.
All workers with this definition found it challenging to find the right balance in their dual
focus on strengths and risks. This was particularly problematic in high risk cases when a position
of curiosity did not elicit sufficient strengths to keep a child safe and directive action was
I do try to take a look at the big
picture and I often will ask a client:
‘are there, are there pieces that I’m
not missing? ... so it’s also trying to,
it’s really trying to get as thorough
of a picture as possible of where the
family is coming from and giving the
family, the space of opportunity to
say what they want to say without
butting in the conversation, without
interrupting them. (116, INT)
22
needed in place of understanding. In describing his discomfort with "hav(ing) to walk a very thin
line between being supportive and strength-based and having expectations or needing to draw
a firm line" (115, FDR), one worker expressed an ambivalence common to workers with this
definition about how to account for the directive use of authority within a strengths-based
approach. It was difficult to access the clinical supervision and time needed to help them
negotiate this balance.
5) Enacting Firm, Fair and Friendly Practice
This was the only version of SBP that was always applicable to child protection work. It was an
approach to making relationships with clients that was, in the words of two workers, "firm, fair
and friendly" (176, INT/102, ITK). The approach required starting from a particular way of
thinking about the client and the relationship, and this informed particular strategies for the
worker-client interaction. SBP meant inviting maximum client collaboration and using their
strengths therapeutically and in plans if possible. However it also meant using authority
purposefully when needed. The worker navigated this constantly shifting balance of
collaboration and directiveness by being highly transparent, attending to the worker-client
reaction, judging impartially and maintaining an overarching belief in the humanity of their
clients.
Workers who described SBP in this way framed it as an adaptation to the child
protection mandate and a way to reconcile the supportive and directive elements of the child
protection role. They might be seen to be fully implementing a Signs of Safety approach, and
providing in their descriptions of SBP a relational model for how to navigate that approach with
clients4. This model is discussed in more detail in the following section:
4 For more detail and a visual representation of this model see Oliver, C. (2014). Making strengths-based practice
work in child protection: Frontline perspectives. (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of British Columbia, Vancouver.
23
a) Being Transparent
Perhaps the most important element of SBP was transparency. It went beyond simply being
free of pretence to incorporate the drive to make
information readily accessible and understood, to
make visible what was hidden. While transparency
had been important to varying degrees in the other
definitions of SBP, this had been primarily to
support SBP by orienting the client to protection
concerns and enabling the worker to navigate
tensions between the supportive or non-judgmental
stance of SBP and a more directive stance. In this
version of SBP it was the fundamental building block
of the strengths-based relationship. Trust was
earned through a very explicit process of sharing
information and following through with promised
consequences.
SBP required the worker to disclose child
protection concerns, the worker's role and
expectations, the possibility of disagreement and
likely outcomes of client decisions. It meant using
clear down-to-earth language that did not gloss over
concerns. It meant directly addressing the issues
and avoiding any sense of playing a role or
pretending with clients. It required discussing the worker's authority, the limits this placed on
the worker-client relationship and the ways in which this was not a relationship of equals.
Openly acknowledging their authority and client feelings regarding the non-consensual nature
For me, strengths-based is honest.
It’s very honest, it’s very
transparent, it’s very open about the
Ministry, about the process, about
the tendencies of what might
happen in a file, about the shared
desired outcome . . . And for me it’s
like here’s the chain of how it works:
if you do this and this is the outcome
here’s what happens next. And if
you don’t do this then here’s the
next step that the Ministry usually
takes . . . here’s how we tend to do
things. Second step, third step,
fourth step, fifth step based on the
contingencies . . . So it’s not when
these things happen it’s because I
changed my mind and I don’t care
about you anymore and don’t care
about your family anymore and I’m
thinking bad thoughts, it’s because
as we talked about this, these are
just the kinds of things that need to
happen. I don’t want them to
happen but they have to happen.
(254, INT)
24
of their contact was a key relationship-building strategy for the workers with this definition of
SBP.
This level of transparency gave the relationship a clear sense of purpose and enabled
clients to be as self-determining as possible. With a clear understanding of all pertinent
information, clients could make informed choices as to how to conduct themselves during the
child protection intervention. It also helped to sustain the worker-client relationship as workers
moved between different levels of directiveness within SBP.
b) Using Authority Purposefully
This definition of SBP included the use of mandated authority. As one worker said, "I feel like I
can’t think of (SBP) as the softer, collaborative, voluntary approach because ultimately I work
under the legislation and that’s really clear what our mandate is" (176, INT). Asserting authority
was not viewed as problematic but rather as an important element of a firm and fair worker-
client relationship. It prevented clients from being taken by surprise by mandated requirements
and made the strengths-based relationship one in which clients always knew where they stood.
It supported the sense that this was a purposeful
relationship in which clients could trust that
workers would follow through on their clear
commitments to child safety.
"Leading" (102, ITK), "guiding" (176, INT)
and being "cut and dried" (254, INT) was
necessary at times. It was, however, a temporary
stance within a strengths-based approach that
supported workers to assume whatever level of
authority was necessary to meet the goal of
child safety. Workers adjusted their level of
directiveness to match client insight, capacity and engagement with the process. When clients
were angry or reluctant to engage workers needed to be persistent and exercise their authority
After trying to de-escalate things,
keep things on a calm thoughtful
level, there are still times when my
assertive presence emerges. It’s not
aggressive, it just then moves into
the: 'there’s some things I have to
do'. I often say: 'we can do it the
easy way or the hard way. I’m
always up for doing things the easy
way; what about you guys?' (248,
INT)
25
even about the need for client contact. This was because SBP required genuine collaboration in
which both parties were required to participate. There was a recognition that it might take
several meetings to develop the conditions for an honest and productive exchange.
c) Inviting Maximum Collaboration in the Process
This version of SBP meant continually inviting the client's perspective, engagement and
collaboration. This involved workers moving from acknowledging their authority to attempting
to reduce the power difference between themselves and clients. Strategies to achieve this
focussed on increasing client power within the relationship, rather than denying their own. The
key to collaboration was asking for, listening to, and exploring the client's perspective and
goals, often with techniques like scaling and exceptions questions. It meant being open to client
feedback and mindfully creating of a sense of safety in the interaction.
The extent of possible collaboration shifted during the course of the worker-client
relationship as it was intimately connected to the shifting nature of client engagement and
worker authority. However there was never a
time when meaningful collaboration was not
possible. This was because in this version of SBP
what was meant by collaboration could be as
small as inviting clients to make informed choices
about the ways in which they engaged with the
worker. For many clients collaboration was built
through participation in small decisions about
process. For other clients it might be as big as
taking full responsibility for safety planning and
performing roles like inviting participants to
planning conferences. The key element of SBP was understanding self-determination in relation
to demonstrated client capacity and repeatedly giving opportunities for clients to demonstrate
that capacity .
To some of my clients I've said: right
now I don’t think that you can see
these things, I’m gonna see them for
you, and we’re gonna come back
and we’re gonna re-evaluate and
see what you see and see how this
has worked and what doesn’t work
and just getting their feedback
about it too. They always have a
voice and they can always
participate. (176, INT)
26
d) Seeing Clients as Human
SBP meant always seeing clients as fellow human beings. This was a core component of this
version of SBP, rather than simply a value that supported it. Being human meant being
inherently worthy of unconditional positive regard, respect and hope. Seeing clients as having a
shared humanity also created a sense of connectedness. As one worker said, "I am a human
being just like them, we are joined in that" (102, ITK). It helped workers to see clients as having
both strengths and areas for growth, as there was a sense that "we're all human, we'll both
make mistakes" (176, INT). Seeing clients as
human meant seeing them in a holistic way.
As one worker put it "I go back to my
version of strengths-based which is
honouring the other human life in the room
and that they experience life and they have
likes and dislikes and feelings and they
contribute that" (176, INT). Looking at
clients in this way also engendered feelings
of caring and compassion that were very
motivating for workers.
It was important to all workers in
this group that these positive feelings, and the underlying conceptualisation of the humanity of
clients, were genuine. When genuine, they served to keep in check the use of worker authority
and facilitated client engagement and the continuation of the strengths-based relationship
even when workers had to act against client wishes. It was the moral imperative to treat fellow
humans with respect and care that was the driving force in keeping the strengths-based
relationship honest and ensured that it did not become a cynical exercise in manipulation.
The way that you do that has to always be
respectful of the humanity of the person
that you’re working with. And therefore if
it is, it’s going to be strength-based, right? I
don’t view them as a monster through a
lens, I actually: 'yes so you busted
somebody’s head open and you then blew
up a house; none of that stuff is excusable,
but that doesn’t mean you’re not a human
being anymore. And so how do we connect
with you as a human being while still doing
the stuff that we need to do in response to
the behaviours that you demonstrated?'.
(254, INT)
27
e) Attending to the Interaction
SBP meant being highly attentive to the worker-client interaction. Workers with this definition
of SBP were very mindful about the ways in which their language, body language and voice tone
could support or undermine the worker-client connection. They described therapeutic
techniques like tracking the client's meaning, using reflective statements to check for
understanding and honouring the need of clients
to take breaks during interviews. Attending to the
minutiae of the interaction included being mindful
of how they sat with clients on the couch, took off
their shoes, positioned furniture or arrived on time
for meetings. It might also mean explicitly
negotiating with clients the ground rules of the
interaction to create the conditions for honest
dialogue
The attentiveness to the interaction helped
workers to continually transmit to clients their
impartiality, presence and caring. It seemed to
soften the impact of their blunt honesty and was
part of an ongoing process of checking and
correcting their communication in order to support understanding and collaboration with their
clients.
f) Judging Impartially
An important element of SBP was impartiality. This allowed workers to listen and relate to
clients and to look past their own assumptions and biases to build a comprehensive
understanding of client strengths and challenges. While the word 'non-judgmental' was
sometimes used, all workers in this group were clear that they were in a position of judgement
with their clients. The important element of SBP was rather the ability to manage their own
I am calm and I’m grounded and I’m
really thoughtful about the
language, again that sounds silly but
choosing the words. How many
times I’ve had people have things
begin to go sideways because of a
misunderstanding, because the
language, my choice of words
triggered, so it wasn’t helpful . . .
And so my language, my physical
presence, where I talk to people, the
difference between me meeting
clients in my office as opposed to
the bloody boardroom; all of that
then reinforces every day the
relationships that I have. (248, INT)
28
preconceptions and emotions in ways that
allowed them to come to a judgement that
was impartial and fair.
There was both a cognitive and
emotional aspect to judging impartially. It
involved understanding client behaviour with
reference to its broader context. It also
involved deliberately working at being calm
and "present in the moment" (248, INT). This
ensured that the worker's judgement was not
impaired and the relationship was not undermined by reactivity, such that "you didn’t inject
something into that relationship that poisons it for future collaboration" (254, INT).
g) Using Strengths
Using strengths was the final component of this
version of SBP. Identifying and acknowledging
strengths was one way to demonstrate genuine
positive regard and respect for clients. Its main
function was to facilitate engagement in the
collaborative relationship and to elicit therapeutic
change. Complimenting strengths encouraged
clients and increased motivation, self-esteem and
agency. Strengths could also be "leveraged" (254,
INT) in safety plans. This might include identifying
protective people and resources in the broader family and community network in order to
access their support. It might also include ensuring that clients were asked to participate in
areas in which they felt most competent.
Looking past the cover of the book
and look(ing) at the content of the
book .. .. We’re all victims of
circumstance in some way, shape or
form, maybe not victims but we’re
all products of circumstance and
perhaps there’s a reason why this
person acts the way they do. (102,
ITK)
I start to build on things they’re
good at. Mum might be really good
at organising, Dad is good at doing
tasks, you know, like going to an
appointment, or making sure to pick
the kids up. Dad might be good at
carrying out Mum’s organised list
you know? Or something along
those lines. (102, ITK)
29
Becoming a Strengths-Based Child Protection Practitioner
There is evidence of a developmental progression from defining SBP as 'Relating
Therapeutically', 'Supporting Client Self-Determination' and 'Connecting to Internal and
External Resources' to defining it as 'Pursuing a Balanced Understanding' to understanding it as
'Enacting Firm, Fair and Friendly Practice' (see Figure 5).
Figure 5 A Developmental Understanding of Becoming a Strengths-Based Practitioner
Workers in the 'Pursuing a Balanced Understanding' group drew on the practices of the first
three groups, merely seeing them as less of a focus than their philosophy about searching for a
balanced understanding. Those in the 'Enacting Firm, Fair and Friendly Practice' group
integrated these practices and expanded the philosophy of balance to incorporate a balanced
use of their own and client authority. What those in the 'Pursuing a Balanced Understanding'
30
group perceived to be contextual supports for SBP those in the 'Enacting Firm, Fair and Friendly
Practice' group incorporated into the definition of SBP itself.
This progression is consistent with a developmental model of skill acquisition. According
to Dreyfus and Dreyfus [32], learning a new approach starts with focussing on the concrete
facts about what to do. Those with the first three definitions of SBP focussed on SBP as a series
of actions, which could be performed in a limited number of situations. As the learner develops
expertise he generalises his knowledge and develops an intuitive 'automatized' sense of how to
enact the approach. This developmental process can explain the shift in focus in the 'Pursuing a
Balanced Understanding' group away from the mechanics of SBP towards characterising it as a
philosophy and simply, 'the right thing to do'. The automatization of basic SBP skills creates
cognitive space for workers to deliberate about more complex applications of SBP like the
integration of mandated authority.
The average years of SBP experience for the 'Relating Therapeutically', 'Supporting
Client Self-Determination' and 'Connecting to Internal and External Resources' interviewees
was eight, for the 'Pursuing a Balanced Understanding' group was 10.25 and for the 'Enacting
Firm, Fair and Friendly Practice' group was 16.5. This supports the idea that workers come to
the more expansive definitions later in their SBP experience, although the small size of the
sample makes this at best a tentative suggestion. It is consistent with the correlation found in
survey responses between SBP experience and the belief that SBP was always applicable. It also
fits with the broader developmental trajectory described by interviewees. All who discussed
how their approach to clients had changed over the course of their career described changes
that might be seen as supporting the more expansive definitions of SBP. These changes
included becoming more flexible, open-minded and emotionally regulated, being more
transparent about their authority and child protection risks and deepening their value base.
31
Several workers holding the 'Pursuing a
Balanced Understanding' and 'Enacting Firm, Fair
and Friendly Practice' definitions of SBP talked
about the negative consequences of definitions
like 'Relating Therapeutically', 'Supporting Client
Self-Determination' and 'Connecting to Internal
and External Resources'. They had explicitly
rejected these definitions for failing to take into
account the child protection mandate, the need
to focus as much on risk as strengths, and the
limited ability of some clients to be self-
determining. Over the course of the study two
workers with less expansive definitions of SBP
appeared to be in this process of actively
redefining the approach to better fit the context of child protection work.
The Importance of Defining SBP to Include the Use of Mandated Authority
It could be argued that workers can simply employ SBP when they want to be supportive and
switch to a more directive approach when this is needed. However a key finding of this study
was that switching between approaches in this way was extremely difficult for workers to do.
Few workers in this study saw SBP as one of a number of possible approaches from which they
could pick and choose as necessary. Few described an alternative to SBP that might be
recognised as respectful and compassionate social work practice in which clients retained some
autonomy and choice. For most, anything that was not SBP was synonymous with bad practice.
It was characterised as punitive, threatening, allowing little room for client input and focussed
on client failings. Descriptions included "wagging the finger" (323, INT), "bullying" (236, INT),
"coming down with the hammer all the time" (216, INT), "oppressive" (115, FDR), "hard-
handed" (266, FS), "removing and just saying: you have to do as I say and jump through these
When I first started with strengths-
based practice I thought that
strengths-based practice was only
focusing on the good so I started off
with a bit of, well actually it was
quite a negative opinion on what
strengths-based practice was
because the feedback that I had
gotten was we need to focus heavy
on the strengths and I felt that it
was a really big disservice because
none of the risks in the family were
getting addressed or they were
getting shovelled aside to only look
at the good things . . . I think it's
become more balanced. (116, INT)
32
hoops" (407, INT) and engaging in "police-dominated practice" (999, INT). As one worker said
"if you weren’t practicing from strengths-based . . . you were just downtrodden and yelling at
people all day long and being the heavy" (216, INT).
The tendency to dichotomise SBP and its
alternatives, reinforced by the common
characterisation of SBP as an all-encompassing
perspective, made shifting between SBP and more
directive approaches extremely hard. It is human
nature to seek consistency in our beliefs and actions
[39]. We commonly attempt to resolve tensions
between dissonant ideas by choosing one idea over
the other and justifying our choice in ways that make
it difficult to access the rejected idea in the future. In
this study, those holding one of the more limited
definitions of SBP tended to become stuck in either a strengths-based or directive position or to
lurch confusingly between the two.
Workers described themselves holding on as long as possible to a purely supportive
strengths-based approach, despite this leading them to ignore risks and to support safety plans
that did not feel safe. Having invested so much in the supportive relationship it became hard to
switch to a stance that might be more critical or directive, even when they felt this was
necessary. Becoming stuck in a supportive position can have serious consequences in child
protection work. The tendency to under-identify risk, to adopt the most optimistic explanation,
to suspend justifiable scepticism, to elevate the goal of preserving the worker-client
relationship above the goal of child safety and to watch but not intervene in risky situations can
all be seen as contributing to 'professional dangerousness' [40, 41]. It has played a well-
documented role in child abuse tragedies [42, 43].
An alternative strategy was to reject even the possibility of a strengths-based approach
with groups of clients and situations that appeared to present higher risk. This rejection
I can have a wonderful, and I would
say maybe a strengths-based
perspective when I do work with one
particular client one day, and then
the next day I have to be the exact
opposite. So it’s really hard, and I
feel like they even question like ‘Oh
my God is this gonna be a good day
of hers or is this gonna be a bad
day? Is she gonna come in and say
something nice about me or is she
gonna come and come in and saying
all these bad things? (60, FS).
33
became codified in a set of rules about when SBP was inapplicable. It led to the perception by
some workers that SBP was inappropriate for large sections of the client population. Some
workers who did try to shift between approaches without first having resolved tensions
between approaches in their own minds or in the minds of clients described feelings of
betrayal, disruption and confusion as result.
In contrast, workers holding the 'Enacting Firm, Fair and Friendly Practice' version of SBP
had successfully reframed inconsistent cognitions to become consistent. They had
reinterpreted SBP to include both care and control and perceived both as an important element
of the child protection role. This enabled them to see more of their daily work as an expression
of SBP. Their identity as a 'strengths-based practitioner' became highly salient [44, 45] as it
supported a positive self concept as a child protection worker. It was not repeatedly threatened
by competing identities necessitated by the need to perform other functions in their child
protection role. This allowed these workers to make considerable emotional investment in their
identity as a strengths-based practitioner, incorporating SBP into their personal value system
and professional self-concept.
Fear and Fearlessness
Fear, or the lack of it, appeared connected to the ability to do SBP. The initial interview
schedule did not include questions on this subject, but the third person interviewed said that
fear of clients undermined her ability to do SBP. The fourth responded to the question as to
what made her different from workers who did not do SBP with "fear...everybody constantly
works under fear" (72). Another who saw SBP as always possible responded to a similar
question by saying "I always feel safe in myself" (176) and another said, "I’m not afraid to meet
clients, I don’t feel like I have to constantly put up barriers . . . I don’t wanna be that person
who’s afraid of every little thing" (86, FDR). While a few workers talked of fear of the
consequences of assuming risk, it was primarily fear of clients that interviewees identified as
problematic.
34
Workers described many fear-provoking
situations. They talked of being confronted by
clients "yelling and screaming" (243, FS), "calling
names and swearing" (999, INT), being "volatile and
out of control" (254, INT) and making death threats.
One worker described a client who was "in
everyone's face, he's got this hair-trigger temper"
(89, INT) and another said of two clients "I want to
tell them that I will call the cops and I will throw
them in jail if they threaten me one more time"
(216, INT). Two workers talked about clients having
firearms, with one describing a situation in which
"we were out on an intake call, the RCMP were with
us, there were gunshots going off, it was just crazy"
(156, FDR). These examples fit with recent studies
that conclude that child protection staff experience a high rate of physical, verbal and
psychological violence [46, 47] and frequently feel fearful [48] and unprepared to manage
angry, aggressive and involuntary clients [49].
Seven of the interviewees said that there were times when they were fearful of clients
and this inhibited their ability to do SBP. They all held one of the first three definitions of SBP
and saw SBP as not always appropriate. They were all women under the age of 45, with an
average experience doing SBP of 4.7 years. Several workers who were not in this group had
talked about women having greater difficulties than men in managing SBP with clients
perceived to be challenging, and one identified this as a particular issue for young women.
These workers talked about how hard it was to make a caring honest relationship with
clients who were frightening. Fear could inhibit their ability to stay in the presence of clients
and to persist in attempts to engage with them. It made them wary of the connection, more
careful, guarded and likely to avoid client visits and to draw on stereotypes rather than getting
to know clients. Fear could lead to disengagement from clients, as the worker 'got on with the
I find in child protection when you’re
out there doing these investigations
you’re not received with arms open,
‘Come on in’ kinda thing right? So if
you come into a family’s home and
they do not want you there it’s really
hard to say ‘Ok let's talk about your
strengths.’ And I understand I mean
that a lot of time people say ‘No, no,
no you can do that anywhere and
everywhere and I don’t believe that.
When somebody has a gun
collection sitting right there, it’s not
gonna happen. At that point you’re
thinking ‘Something shitty’s about
to happen and I need to get out of
here.’ (323, INT)
35
job' without them. It sometimes meant that either SBP or client contact had to be abandoned
altogether.
An alternative strategy to disengagement from clients was to "kill them with kindness"
(216, INT/243, FS). This included supporting the client's right to complain, although this might
be seen as another disengagement strategy as clients
were redirected towards supervisors or Quality
Assurance staff. For five workers it meant being as
friendly as possible and attempting to refocus the
conversation on client strengths. However two
workers talked about having limited success with this
strategy, partly because "strengths-based to a parent
who’s very angry . . . can come across as
condescending. They don’t want to have you smile,
they don’t want empathy they just want you to ask
your questions and get back out of there" (216, INT).
Two others talked about feeling with this approach
that they were simply avoiding necessary discussions.
In contrast, nine workers talked explicitly about not being fearful or told stories of their
practice that illustrated fearlessness. All nine believed that it was always possible to implement
some elements of SBP and this group included all those who defined SBP as 'Enacting Firm, Fair
and Friendly Practice'. Their average age was 41.9, the average years of SBP was 14.5.
In the face of client disagreement or anger, these workers were able to remain engaged,
firm and open. They did not back away from conflict or attempt to refocus the conversation on
strengths. They remained firm about their position, purpose and the need to develop an
effective relationship. At the same time they appeared genuinely open to the input of angry
clients and engaged in a strategy of moving between "laying it on the line and giving them the
choices" (407, INT). As soon as they had stated their position they invited the client to
participate in the conversation. This might be to clarify the worker's assumptions, for instance
Yeah, fearful of clients . . . in those
situations I feel like, I think my worry
with those situations is that by being
strength-based I’m not
communicating the protection
concerns as clearly, because I feel
afraid of how the client’s going to
react so I often really, really soften
it. So I think I tend to maybe be
strengths-based to a fault in a way.
Where I’m dancing around what
really the issue is and not quite
being clear about it. (203, FS)
36
saying to an angry client "you have some good qualities, you have some, at least tell me if I’m
wrong" (236, INT). More often it was inviting clients to make decisions as to the best way
forward in the relationship, to say "this is what makes me feel safe and for us to work together.
This is what I need and what do you need?" (176, INT). As one worker explained, "I’m able to
just kind of say, even if it is kind of a nasty situation: ‘These are the expectations, what do you
wanna do about it? Let's talk about this, where do you wanna go?’" (72, INT).
While fear and fearlessness was generally discussed in relation to clients, a common
characteristic of the interviewees who showed fearlessness was their willingness to actively
challenge decisions of their own management. These interviewees clearly differentiated
themselves from management and described themselves expressing and pursuing what they
perceived to be good practice in the face of opposition from other parts of the organisation.
When these workers talked about what made them able to remain engaged, firm and
open in the face of conflict with clients they directly attributed the factors listed in Figure 6.
What Makes You Fearless? Number of
Interviewees
Believing that treating clients this way is the morally right thing to do 4
Seeing clients as humans with rights and capacity to make good decisions 4
Seeing client anger as a normal and healthy fear-based response 4
Faith in my own competence 3
A history of working in the criminal justice system 3
A history of working in multiple roles in isolated communities 3
The knowledge I have prepared a safe environment: prior information, police escort, negotiating safe conditions
3
Maturity 3
Strong self-regulation skills 2
A strong personal support network 2
Figure 6 Reasons for Fearlessness
37
Several workers showed their awareness of the fine line separating fearlessness from
recklessness. They spontaneously raised the question of whether they were being reckless and
concluded that they were not because they had in place the conditions that would keep them
safe. These could be internal protective factors like conflict resolution skills or a clear
understanding of the limits of safe interaction, or external factors like the presence of police or
colleagues. This is important; if workers are not to be put in harm's way, any encouragement
for workers to be fearless needs to be accompanied by work to support these protective factors
and to help workers assess when fearlessness might be unwise. Workers need a clear
understanding that there may be times when their safety requires them to disengage from the
client, to back away from their position or to limit their openness to client feedback that may
be abusive or damaging. This right to disengage from clients can be seen as one element of the
purposeful use of authority embraced by 'Enacting Firm, Fair and Friendly Practice' SBP.
Supports Needed to Become a Strengths-Based Practitioner
When 200 survey respondents identified what they found most challenging about SBP, the
largest number located challenges within the organisational structure of the Ministry for
Children and Family Development, rather than with clients or the technicalities of the approach
(see Figure 7). Interviewees holding the more expansive definitions of SBP identified most of
their challenges as related to the lack of organisational support for the approach. This suggests
that any consideration of the implementation of SBP needs to focus as much on developing
MCFD capacity to support SBP as it does on individual workers' knowledge and skills. This is
consistent with recent writing about the implementation of strength-based child protection
initiatives which has acknowledged the importance of developing system-wide capacity for SBP
[2, 11, 14, 15]. It highlights the importance of a supportive organisational culture and sustained
commitment to the approach from senior leadership such that the principles of SBP become
embedded at all levels of service delivery. This kind of organisational support makes it more
likely that educational initiatives will succeed in reducing the number of challenges that
workers attribute to the practice of SBP and to the clients themselves [50].
38
Factor Percentage of n
Organisational Factors 46
Lack of time 25 Unsupportive organisational culture 12 Lack of resources 8 Legislation, tools and policies 8 Unsupportive supervisor 4 Unsupportive management 3 Other agencies uncooperative 2 Lack of effective training 1
Client Factors 31
Clients who are unwilling to engage/acknowledge concerns 12 Hostile clients 6 Clients with whom it is hard to find strengths 4 Clients with substance use issues 3 Clients with mental health issues 3 Clients with a long history of child welfare involvement 4 Clients who lack capacity 3 Clients do not trust SBP 4
Practice Factors 31
Balancing supportive and directive roles in client relationship 14 Identifying strengths 6 Keeping the right attitude 6 Being strengths-based in high risk situations 4 SBP requires a high degree of skill 2 Not being phony 1 Managing conflict 1 Not ignoring structural barriers 1 Doing SBP with non-English speakers 1
Figure 7 What is Most Challenging About SBP?
The following section details the most important supports to help workers overcome these
barriers.
39
1) Time
More time was the most common response when workers were asked what supports they
needed in order to do SBP. A clear message from
the study was that it takes time to build and tend a
trusting relationship with a client, to invite their
collaboration, to listen to their perspective, to
support their strengths and to negotiate power. It
takes even longer to do this with multiple members
of a client's network. Time was also needed to
ensure workers were sufficiently psychologically
prepared to do SBP. This included time taken for
clinical supervision, debriefing and brainstorming,
whether this was offered individually by
supervisors or through a team supervision model.
Many workers discussed employing more
staff and reducing caseload size and administrative
demands to free up the necessary time for the
approach and its focus on client interaction. Several workers talked of caseloads of over 60
clients, with one commenting of SBP, "how can they POSSIBLY do preventative work with
clients? With caseloads that high, ALL they can do is respond to immediate risk and
emergencies" (189, INT).
2) Resources
27% of workers who identified necessary supports for SBP said they needed flexible and
responsive services to resource safety plans for families. It was clearly hard to show up empty-
handed to a collaborative relationship. For many clients an important marker of social worker
Strengths-based practice takes a
great deal of time, effort and
patience. You must build a strong
relationship with the client in order
to weather the storm of real change.
This can be difficult in a child
protection setting but it is possible! I
have been amazed time and time
again at what families and youth
are able to do when they feel
empowered to make change.
Although it takes tremendous work
up front, the shift away from
adversarial relationships and top
down power dynamics free both
client and worker to focus on the
real needs and issues. (212, OTH)
40
helpfulness is the ability to offer resources and
very concrete practical help [51]. The most
common specific services identified were family
support outreach workers, mental health
services and support in the form of gas vouchers,
bus passes or money for client transportation.
3) Strengths-Based Management
The level of management5 support was perceived
to be an important determinant of whether
MCFD as an organisation supported SBP and whether workers could enact the approach.
Workers perceived management as playing a key role in determining the availability of
resources and time and modelling a positive or negative attitude towards SBP. When workers
described the kind of support they needed from management it typically mimicked the support
they sought to offer their clients within a strengths-based approach. There was a strong call for
the principles and strategies of SBP to be applied to the supervisor-supervisee relationship in an
approach that might best be characterised as Strengths-Based Management6.
Research conducted by Gallup into effective management behaviour suggests that
strengths-based management approaches have a range of positive impacts, including increases
in employee productivity, engagement and self-efficacy [52]. Child protection studies have
shown that by identifying worker strengths and capacity supervisors not only demonstrate how
workers can do this with clients, but are likely to make the worker to feel more valued, effective
and committed [49, 53, 54]. Workers who feel effective are more likely to collaborate [55, 56].
These conclusions support recent findings that one of the best ways for workers to understand
what it means to implement SBP is for them to experience it being played out in the
5 Unless otherwise stated the term 'management' includes supervisors and higher level managers
6 For a description of the values and strategies of Strengths-Based Management see Oliver, C. (2014). Making
strengths-based practice work in child protection: Frontline perspectives. (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of British Columbia, Vancouver.
The fact that we have no services for
our clients, it’s super hard to be
strengths-based with your clients
when you remove a child and then
you tell a parent: we’re sorry you’re
on a waiting list for supervised
access, and it could be up to a
month, or longer... So I mean it’s
hard to be strengths-based in the
Ministry they’ve created but I think
you do try your best but you’re
always saying sorry. (999, INT)
41
relationship with their supervisor [2, 13, 57-61]. It is also worth noting that if supervisors are to
effectively practice and model SBP with their teams, they themselves may need to experience it
from those to whom they report.
4) One Definition of SBP
An important step in creating an organisational culture conducive to SBP was for MCFD to
adopt and commit to a shared definition of the approach. Different definitions across the
organisation created confusion and were perceived to be a significant barrier to
implementation. This study suggests versions of SBP based in generic social work practice are
not helpful. It confirms the value of approaches like the Signs of Safety that have been
developed specifically for child protection practice, draw primarily on the solution-focussed
tradition and support workers to exercise both care and control. The 'Enacting Firm, Fair and
Friendly Practice' model described in this study does not replace such approaches. It is best
viewed as an extension of their conceptualisation of strengths-based child protection work, or
as a model of how practitioners can manage the relational aspects of this work.
Implementing one definition of SBP requires that policy, training and management
approach be oriented to this definition. Implementation is likely to be improved if the
supervision model aligns with the approach expected in the interaction between workers and
clients. Evidence to this effect led Arizona to develop a supervision model requiring supervisors
to replicate the strategies of Family-Centred Practice within their teams [59]. This meant
undertaking a systematic assessment of worker strengths and goals and framing their team as a
community with inherent strengths and resources that could be exploited through group
supervision. In discussing the development of another strengths-based supervision model in the
United States, this time aligning with the Casey Foundation's Permanency Practice model, Frey
et al. [57] suggest that supervisors tend to feel uncomfortable exercising their authority with
supervisees. They claim that enacting the agency's practice model in supervision is likely to
benefit supervisors by leading to greater comfort with the model and a greater ability to hold
workers to account. Just as 'Enacting Firm, Fair and Friendly Practice' SBP appears to help
42
frontline workers perform their dual role with clients, so it may support supervisors to move
more easily between collaboration and the purposeful use of their authority with those they
manage.
5) SBP Education
Despite the fact that a high percentage of respondents said they knew about and did SBP, 20%
of survey respondents who answered the question about supports identified a need for
training. This reinforces the view, expressed by
many in this study, that mastery of SBP requires
ongoing education, practice and support. Indeed,
the workers who held the more expansive
versions of SBP expressed the view that humility
and an openness to learn, whether from clients,
educators, supervisors or team were key
supports for SBP.
The most common requirements for SBP
training was that it should be ongoing and
practical, with an emphasis on skill-building and
managing 'real life' situations. Such situations
included telling clients about child protection
concerns, identifying strengths and managing
clients who were not engaging with the approach. To help workers deal with SBP within the
child protection context, they needed "more training in 'real' social work i.e. how can
protection really use it while still being faced with a deficit based model, where faults are
pointed out, and we still have the power to remove someone's children?" (142, INT). This
meant it had to address very practical issues like how to record in a strengths-based way, using
strengths-based tools and keeping appropriate boundaries to support "getting in there, doing
your job and getting out" (216, INT). Several workers called for training to engage them
They had actors coming in, ‘cos that
was more real for me. Like if I’m
doing it with one of my co-workers
it’s going to be really different,
right? And I’d like to have visuals, I
remember visual, so I’d like to see
videos of how is this done, in a
certain situation. Show me
examples. I don’ t just want to read
about it in a book, right? ‘Cos it’s the
emotions that you see in strengths-
based practice just isn’t in what
you’re reading, right? It’s how are
people, how are you in your body
language, how are you in your tone?
All of that. (268, FS)
43
viscerally or to be simulation-based. There is considerable theoretical support for the
contention that the most effective training is that that which enables workers to practice SBP in
lifelike situations.
A developmental understanding of the ability to implement SBP suggests a staged
approach to training. This would start with training about the core principles and strategies of
the chosen version of SBP - the basics of what it is and how to do it. It is important that the
model promoted in this training be applicable to all child protection functions and that learners
understand the ways in which it is different from generic models. A frequent complaint from
workers was that their basic education in SBP, in degree programs and at the Justice Institute
for example, taught them an understanding of SBP that was not useful for child protection
work. More advanced training should address how to do SBP in the situations identified in this
study as particularly problematic (see Figure 3).
Addressing these specific practice scenarios will help
practitioners to build a cognitive database of SBP
examples and enable them to expand their application
of the approach.
The study suggests that SBP might also be
advanced by helping practitioners to connect with
personal values and beliefs that are congruent with
the approach. These values differed amongst
interviewees, but had a common effect in motivating
them to sustain a strengths-based approach. For those
workers who appeared to have greatest expertise in
SBP, the process of reflecting on personal values was
an important step in preparing for client interaction.
This is consistent with recommendations from other
studies suggesting the value of ongoing opportunities for individual and group reflection about
what it means to enact SBP in daily practice [2, 11]. It was telling in this study that both workers
Sitting with you last week, one of
the things that I probably didn’t
think about at the time is it would
cause to come into the conscious
present all that I value and believe in
and so when I was sitting talking
with (Name) yesterday, all of that
was so much more available to me
in my language and in my
conversation. And so this, these two
conversations have definitely
provided that opportunity to remind
me of first principles and my own
journey and that will of course serve
to reinforce my passion for this way
of working. (248, INT)
44
who were interviewed twice described how
even the process of reflecting during the
interviews made SBP easier to enact.
One form of ongoing education that
appears useful in creating the culture of peer
support that can sustain a strengths-based
perspective is group supervision [59, 62]. It may
be a particularly important means of debriefing
and generating new ideas for workers who do
not yet have extensive experience of SBP from
which to draw.
6) Emotional Self-Regulation Skills
All those who held the most expansive
definition of SBP talked about the
importance of emotional self-regulation.
It helped them to remain emotionally
present, impartial, assertive and
collaborative. Emotional self-regulation
was particularly necessary when workers
faced threat from clients. It was
intimately linked to the fearlessness that
was demonstrated by workers who
remained open, firm and engaged with
clients in extremely anxiety-provoking
situations.
It’s something that the whole team
has to be on board with otherwise
it’s, like I said before if I didn’t have
the support of my team members
then it would be really hard for me
sometimes to see, to practice
strengths-based. So I think, I guess
I’m just trying to say like it’s the
importance of people doing it
around you and your team leader
making it a priority, rather than just
kind of instructing us to do certain
things that are quote un-quote
strengths-based. (203, FS)
I’m emotionally invested in my cases and I
have opinions about the children and families
but it’s not my job to put my emotional
opinion in my work. My job is to guide the
child and the parents through the work. And
it’s really emotional for them and I need to be
strong and regulate my emotion, to always be
calm and hear their concerns and respond
back and if you can’t do that I think is where
you actually, you can’t do strengths-based
practice and in fact I think you probably end
up doing damaging practice ‘cos you just want
out of the meeting, right? I’m gonna say
something so it’s over and then we’re out,
right? (176, INT)
45
Maintaining this level of self-regulation took considerable effort and advanced skills.
Three interviewees identified skills gained from their advanced education in clinical counselling,
psychology and conflict resolution as important supports for their practice. One talked of the
value of graduate level counselling courses in developing the empathy, self-regulation and
boundaries needed for SBP and suggested MCFD develop recruiting practices that targeted
people with these skills.
7) Comfort With Power
Workers' perceptions of their own power played an important role in their ability to do SBP.
Workers holding the more expansive versions of SBP credited a comfort with their authority,
confidence in their abilities and a clear sense of their mandated purpose as supports for their
practice. Those who showed fearlessness felt they had the power to effect positive outcomes in
difficult situations. These findings are supported by other studies which suggest that those who
perceive themselves to be lacking in power tend to engage in more coercive and controlling
behaviour, to be more sensitive to threat and challenges to their authority [55] and less able to
receive and make use of feedback [63]. This makes them less able to engage in the kind of non-
reactive and collaborative relationship required by SBP. It suggests that the tendency of some
SBP writers to ignore power or to locate it entirely with the client is not helpful. Rather than
denying their power, workers might do better to acknowledge that it can have an important
protective function while focussing on ways to increase client power in a constantly negotiated
process of power sharing [64, 65].
This raises the question of how to support child protection workers to develop comfort
with, and learn to skilfully exercise, their power. It may be no coincidence that three of the four
workers who described themselves as holding the 'Enacting Firm, Fair and Friendly Practice'
understanding of SBP were men. It is likely that the same reproduction of structural power
relations that sees a disproportionate number of men achieve senior positions in social work
[66] contributed to their comfort with authority. They had also all worked previously in
positions in which they held significant authority and this is likely to have played a role.
46
However, the experiences of the fourth and least experienced worker in this group reflect
messages from research with mandated clients suggesting that workers can become confident
in their power by very deliberately and transparently negotiating the terms of engagement and
the use of their authority [67, 68].
Some social work authors have suggested educational strategies to help social workers
to develop comfort and expertise in using their power. These include helping social work
students to experience their power productively by taking greater control of decisions related
to their own teaching and learning [69] and enabling students and practitioners to talk about
the complexities of the professional power they hold [70]. These suggestions point to the
potential for structuring safe classroom-based experiences that enable learners to exercise
power in relationships with instructors, peers and their institution. They support the
suggestions of workers in this study about the value of ongoing experiential training that
enables them to practice and reflect on the challenges of exercising care and authority with
clients in SBP. As Turnell & Essex (2006) comment, "Since the skilful use of leverage is often not
part of the helping professionals' usual toolkit, most professionals need to spent time
developing and practising this skill" [71].
6. Limitations
It is important to note the study's limitations when considering the findings and their
interpretation. The research included 27% of MCFD frontline workers and it is impossible to
pinpoint the extent to which the views expressed represent the total population or exclude
important sub-populations. To maximise participant anonymity, information related to
important demographic characteristics like gender, location and cultural identity was not
collected and it is not possible to account for the ways in which these characteristics have a
bearing on how workers interpret strengths-based ideas. This means that caution is needed
with generalising findings to the entire population of MCFD child protection workers. Patterns
47
and themes in the sample should be seen as suggestive only of patterns and themes in the
broader population.
At no point in the study did the researchers offer a definition of SBP. This strategy
successfully elicited participant definitions of the approach. However it also made it impossible
to distinguish which version of SBP survey respondents had in mind when they talked of their
knowledge, practice and attitudes. This lack of specificity also applied to the question regarding
team membership. There is evidence that respondents did not interpret the team categories
consistently. Survey findings should be read with these limitations in mind.
7. Further Research
Some MCFD staff and social work students have indicated that this study usefully addresses the
problem of how to make SBP work in child protection. Further research is recommended to
support any changes that result from the study, and in particular to examine how best to
implement Strengths-Based Management and the 'Enacting Firm, Fair and Friendly Practice'
model, and to evaluate their outcomes. This research should be conducted in collaboration
with child protection clients, workers, supervisors and managers and be informed by an
assessment of the strengths and limitations of other SBP outcome studies.
It would be highly instructive to examine the prevalence and distribution of the five
definitions of SBP identified in this study. This might be achieved through a province-wide
survey and could help focus educational initiatives to support a child protection-applicable
definition of the approach. Exploring the ways in which the ideas of SBP are applied in
delegated Aboriginal agencies would also be a rich area for further learning.
A final priority area for research is in best practices regarding the education and support
of such competencies as fearlessness, comfort with authority and emotional self-regulation.
This applies to all developmental levels from undergraduate to advanced practitioner.
48
8. Recommendations
Based on the findings from this study it is recommended that the Ministry:
1. Promote a shared, child protection-applicable understanding of SBP for all frontline child
protection practitioners and those who support them.
This understanding should include the values and strategies described in strengths-based
approaches specifically developed for child protection work [1, 7] and the relational model
described in this study as 'Enacting Firm, Fair and Friendly Practice'.
2. Align policy and training with the chosen understanding of SBP.
3. Implement a model of Strengths-Based Management that aligns with the chosen
understanding of SBP.
4. Establish processes for regular group and/or individual strengths-based supervision.
5. Increase the time available to workers for doing SBP with clients.
6. Provide adequate resourcing for strengths-based plans.
7. Provide ongoing developmentally appropriate training in SBP to frontline practitioners and
supervisors.
Training should start with the basic values, strategies and relational model of the chosen
strengths-based approach. The ways in which this approach is different from generic strengths-
based approaches should be discussed. Training should help workers identify personal values
that are congruent with SBP. Further training should be practice-based and address scenarios
involving clients and situations identified by workers in this study as particularly challenging or
49
unsuited to SBP. Training should include the opportunity both to see SBP modelled by others
and to practise the approach.
8. Provide training to help workers to develop comfort with authority, emotional self-
regulation skills and fearlessness.
9. Discuss with university and other educational partners changes to teaching to incorporate
the chosen understanding of SBP and to better support comfort with authority, emotional
self-regulation skills and fearlessness.
10. Undertake the program of research described in Section Seven to continue to inform the
Ministry's development and implementation of SBP.
9. Conclusion
Strengths based practice holds a great deal of promise for child protection work. It fits well with
how clients say they wish to be treated, has been linked to positive outcomes and, as in this
study, is popular with frontline practitioners. However, there are many formulations of SBP and
generic versions that frame the worker's role as solely collaborative and supportive are not
helpful in child protection settings. They do not support workers to exercise their mandated
authority or to effectively manage their dual risk-management and support functions. Many
child protection workers currently appear to be attempting to implement these versions of SBP
and this puts them at risk of under-responding or over-responding to child safety concerns.
These versions require that workers step outside a strengths-based approach when it is
necessary to be directive, making it hard for them to internalise SBP values and practices and to
establish consistent, effective and safety-focussed worker-client relationships.
Workers who hold an understanding of SBP that has been specifically adapted for child
protection settings are more likely to effectively manage risk within a strengths-based approach
50
and to internalise SBP as part of their daily practice and professional identity. The skills and
strategies of such adapted strengths-based approaches have been detailed in the solution-
focussed child protection literature. The 'Enacting firm, fair and friendly practice' version of SBP
described in this study supports these adapted approaches by providing a model of how to
navigate the strengths-based worker-client relationship. The findings of this study suggest that
the Ministry can increase implementation of SBP by promoting this relational model and a
shared definition of SBP that is relevant to child protection work.
To sustain SBP workers need to feel that both they and the approach are valued. They
also need to feel safe, confident, comfortable with their power and able to regulate common
emotions like anxiety and fear. Some of these needs can be met by offering ongoing
opportunities for reflection and education. Such opportunities should support workers to move
from an understanding of basic skills and values to developing the expertise to apply them with
clients who appear to lack the capacity or intent to collaborate. This study, however, reinforces
the emerging message from SBP research that possibly the most important organisational
strategy to support workers to do SBP is to implement Strengths-Based Management. This
includes enabling workers to invest the necessary time to negotiate strengths-based
relationships with clients and the necessary resources to make safety plans work. With these
supports in place, this study suggests there is considerable cause for optimism that workers can
implement SBP in ways that maximise both client engagement and child safety.
51
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